Posts Tagged ‘ medical errors ’

“Oops” Not Welcome Here (your Hospital…your Drug Store…)

November 20th, 2009. By Hunter West

More safeguards are needed to prevent medical errors There are some jobs that should be held to a higher standard. Like holding public office, or serving as a priest, or acting as someone’s surgeon. Maybe you’re about to amputate a limb…and the patient assumes you know the correct one to remove.

Well, as experience has taught us—not always.

Here’s a couple of examples of ‘oopsies’ that are unforgivable. Imagine if this happened to you…

Oops #1: Wrong Kerry, Wrong Test

Kerry Higuera was three months into her pregnancy when she started to bleed. Fearing a miscarriage, she headed to her local emergency room. It seemed the prudent thing to do.

According to CNN she was put in a room that February morning last year in Arizona and was told to wait until a nurse came by to get her.

Soon enough a nurse poked her head in and said, “Kerry?” Kerry said yes, she was Kerry. Well, off they go to the CT scan room. “Is this really what I need to have done,” asks a reluctant Kerry, assuming that radiating her abdomen containing a three-month-old fetus can’t be healthy. The answer was yes. “This is what the doctor wants…”

You can imagine Kerry’s panic when, soon after having the CT scan on her abdomen Higuera was visited by the emergency room physician, two radiologists and someone representing the

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Tags: hospital errors, medical errors, medical malpractice, pharmacy errors
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