You probably know Evan Handler as Harry Goldenblatt, Charlotte York's husband on HBO's "Sex and the City," or as Charlie Runkle, the agent for David Duchovny's character on "Californication." What you probably don't know is that he's a passionate patient advocate, based on his experience being treated for leukemia in the mid- and late-1980s.
In many ways, Handler is the ultimate empowered patient. "I learned that I must always remain in control, double-check everyone's work, and trust no one completely," Hander wrote of his approximately eight months in the hospital. "I must have been sheer hell to be around. But I know that my cantankerousness saved my life on several occasions."
In his books "It's Only Temporary," and "Time on Fire," Handler wrote that during his months in the hospital, he was given intravenous drugs that were supposed to go to another patient, that nurses tried to give him medications his doctors had forbidden for him and that staff members refused to follow the hospital's posted hygiene precautions for immunosuppressed patients like himself.
Handler survived when statistics said he shouldn't have. He endured round after round of chemotherapy, one infection after another and a bone marrow transplant. In this conversation with CNN Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, Handler discusses firing your doctor, tattooing medical directives on your stomach and the importance of not doing exactly what you're told.
Elizabeth Cohen: Were you a "bad" patient?
Evan Handler: The irony of "bad" patients is that they actually do better for themselves. ... There were hundreds and hundreds of instances where my being a "bad" patient saved my life.
EC: You write about how nurses tried to give you drugs to which you'd had "horrendous adverse reactions" even though doctors had explicitly written in your chart you shouldn't have those drugs. A friend of mine had a similar problem, and we decided maybe he should have hung a sign around his neck with a list of the drugs he wasn't supposed to get.
EH: That doesn't sound like a bad idea. [A doctor once told me about] a registered nurse who had a "Do Not Resuscitate" order tattooed on her abdomen. She said she felt it was the only way her wishes would be respected.
EC: You write about how you became "a criminal of sorts" by forging your doctor's signature on authorization slips so your bloodwork would be done by a lab that ran the tests more quickly. Were you afraid you'd get caught?
EH: Nothing bad is going to happen to you if you don't do exactly as you're told. They weren't going to put me in jail. I worried about getting caught only because then I wouldn't be able to do it any more.
EC: You describe your first doctor as being nasty, hostile and disrespectful. He yelled at your father for calling him on the phone with a question about your care. He yelled at you when you were in the middle of chemotherapy and came to see him with a rash and a fever because the fever was only 100 degrees. Did you wait too long to fire him?
EH: Oh, yeah. Doctors had told me that I would be endangering my care if I switched doctors, but that advice was criminal. Look, the only way to change things is through the marketplace. Recently I needed to have something in my mouth looked at. The doctor performed a biopsy without lidocaine -- just put a blade in my mouth and cut without telling me. I never went back, and I wrote him a three-page letter. You should leave a bad doctor, and if you have the energy, tell them why you left.
EC: When you were being treated for leukemia, you were very, very sick. You said sometimes you were barely conscious. How'd you keep up the stamina to keep double-checking everyone's work?
EH: I was lucky to be able to maintain my strength and do it as long as I did, and my girlfriend at the time, Jackie, was willing to sit by my side and advocate for me, and she was very skilled at doing it. You wonder, how many people die from illnesses because the strength to keep up vigilance runs out?
InnerGlow2008-10-02 09:30:53Right on. After my total thyroidectomy, I was given a full chicken dinner with a lettuce salad with drain tubes in my throat. Morons.
I had to fight like a pitbull (well-groomed, with lipstick!) when my father was in the hospital for an abdominal aortic aneurysm repair a few years back. He has 14" titanium rods in his back from a multi-vertebral fusion, and laying on flat on his back in the ICU was more pain than he could bear. He also had a kidney stone at the time, which is how they discovered the AAA. They couldn't treat the kidney stone until the AAA was repaired and healed, so that hurt like a @#%!$ as well. Anyway, they tried to offer him tylenol. I thought he was going to get off the gurney and hurt someone - and blow his aneurysm. I told the nurse he needed dialaudid and benadryl and that it should be in his chart. She rolled her eyes and told me his pain was not that bad. I aksed her to call his doctor. She said no, he had already been here and was busy. I saw the doctor in the hall and grabbed him as he was leaving and explained what was happening. He looked at the chart, showed me that it was written in the chart as a PRN and informed the nurse. He seemed quite annoyed with her. Then I had to hound the nurse to get the drugs from the pharmacy ASAP. She complained that it was a high dose - I told her to take it up with the doctor. Dad had a tolerance to opiates because he'd been taking vicodin regularly for his back problems and had recently graduated to percocet when the kidneystone hit. I told her the dose was appropriate, and that he had already had it in the ER (if she would bother to read the chart) and he did fine with it. I had a grown man in tears who needed pain relief NOW and I wasn't going to take attitude from her. Granted, I know men are babies when it comes to pain, but I've had a kidney stone before and DAMN that hurts!!!
They also tried to give him a med he's allergic to (can't remember which one - it was ordered by one of the many docs that roam the hospital and that had never seen him). It should have been in his hospital records, and it probably was... but it didn't make it onto his chart. The nurse was going to go ahead and give it to him anyway. My stepmom was beside herself, dad was in la-la land, and I picked up the phone and was going to page his doctor when she finally agreed to double check. She came back with a surprised look on her face and sneered at me when she told me I was right.
I've had to fight medication mixups with my stepmom - she was in for another cancer surgery, and they were administering her daily blood pressure meds. Except they were the wrong dose. Well, the nurse said, that's what's in the chart. I said I believe you, but your chart is wrong. I showed her my stepmom's medication record. She was nice about it, and cleared up the mixup. One wrong dose probably wouldn't have killed the woman, but what if no one caught it and she got the wrong dose for the 10 days she was in there? And then there was the time the ICU nurse went to put the hospital ID bracelet on her, and it was for the 70-year old black man down the hall. When I told her that my stepmom was not a black man and perhaps she should look a bit closer, she laughed about it. Yea, that gives me confidence. And my stepmom's room was right outside the nurse's station - those women laughed and BS'ed all night long at that station. It was loud as hell and my stepmom got NO sleep. Do these people not realize that there are sick people in the ICU that need to sleep at night?
Like the time I sat around and let a counsler insult me just because i new they would do a cbc for intake to the psychward. I really needed that cbc at the time.
My GP said I am sorry they treated you that way. He said but I see you finally got your cbc.
This week i am being a bad patient Mom. What a time for the phone to go out. Got it fixed today and spent the remander of the day setting up doctor appiontments.
OMG. My son is complaining about more pain and more things hurting. I do not know if this just means he is feelling well enough to talk about it or if he getting worse. We see the eye doctor tomorrow. I am sure she will order an mri. I have to call the neurology department tomorrow. His head of course feels like he was run over by a train. His legs are hurting him. I think that would come from his spine but i do not know? His chest and back hurt. He is wobbley I thought from the head trama. He said no. He said it actually hurts my legs that much to walk on them. Yesterday he used the word stiff to descibe the wobbleyness in his legs but today it was pain.
Well I am off to bed. Need all the rest i can get so I can keep an eye on the doctors. My sons brain fog is worse than mine at the moment. And well he is used to being healthy not used to going to doctors at all. Gp says he is a new patient scince he has not been in for three years.
This last time I was hospitalized in April, I shared a room with a little old lady who was hacking and coughing up junk constantly. After about the third day there, It occured to me to ask why she was there and she had a very bad double pneumonia and other elderly ailments. I asked if they routinely put immune compromised patients together with someone as sick as she. Boy they got me out of there so fast, I got whiplash, lol. I had to lie in the hall for the longest time, until they found me a private suite upstairs where I got primo treatment, lol. I think they about peed their pants when they realized their mistake...Well, I guess i will have to go to bat for the medical profession. I do not know where you people go to the hospital but that does not sound like the place I work. Where I work, everyone has a name, first and last, not a number. Patients are treated with dignity and respect. If a patient wants to talk to the doctor, we call the doctor, and the doctor either comes to the room or calls them in their room. I would think most nurses would check blood pressures and vitals before administering any cardiac med. And I also question doses of narcotics with patients. I generally will not give a patient the dose of med they want unless it is well documented that the patient is used to that dose through chronic use. You only have to have one patient respiratory arrest on you and then you always question. That is being a good nurse. If those nurses are questioning, they are being careful not to cause harm to a patient.
Americans are spoiled rotten when it comes to health care. They want want want and then when they don't get, they threaten to sue. For many, nothing is good enough. These people need to go to an under developed nation and spend a week in that health care system, then they will come back here and not complain so much. When you rag on a nurse or any other health care professional, you actually increase their chances of making a mistake. I hate patients like that. I will pass them off to another nurse the next day if they have made me nervous and increased my chance of making a mistake. I just do not have the time or energy for those patients. If your family member has a different nurse every day, you may want to ask yourself what kind of patient you are. If you want to help your family member, take a proactive part in their recovery. Offer to help out with their ADL's, go fetch them water, offer to change their gown. Yeah, that is not what you pay good money for but if your nurse can focus his or her energy on the patients health and he/she does not spend the entire day grooming and serving coffee, nursing and medical care will get better. I would also like to invite any of you who have never walked a mile in a nurses shoes, to do so, it will shed a whole new light on the profession. I think you will gain a new understanding of what a nurse really does all day long. Where I work, I am busy. I do not have time to run to the kitchen for drinks and food which seems to be a theme. I do not sit around and talk "smack"(as Lev would call it). I'm sure there are units that do. I hate to hear such a low opinion of nurses by some of you and I'm sure this will continue on this thread.
The article. He did something illegal when he bragged about forging a docs signature. I cannot believe he admitted that in public. Patients like him are a liability to the medical profession. I would report him. Well he was trying to stay alive. I think we should let him slide on that. After all i believe he is happy with the out come.
Sons eye doctor said i was very helpful and doing a good job helping with sons care. I told her we both have brain fog but as of today my sons is worse than mine. He wrote that the year was 98. Well he was only ten years off. He did not know his age when asked. I think he may be having some problems. The doctor is very good. A mother also. And very angry about how this happened. She doesn't want violence in her town. Everyone keeps telling him that they are very sorry this happened to him. So i am just trying hard to do as she tells us. I went with mostly to get proper care instructions. I didn't think he was in any shape to remember what he was told.
Milly. Did the doc do a MRI on your son today? I would think she would be concerned about this since its been a week or so since this happened.No she did not. I thought she might also. This was the eye doctor of course. He will see GP next week. Everything takes so much time around here. They say if you are in a hurry or if he is that bad to go to the eroom. He did have a ctscan at the hospital. She did a very thourogh eye exam. Said he still had inflamation in the right eye. So for the weekend cortisone drops every three hours. And stuff to dialate his pupil every eight hours. She will check Monday to see if it is working. If not we will go from there.
Oh did you mean his brain? I am sure he has inflamation there also. He is not vomiting or anything. His pupils were not showing any indication of him dieing at the moment. He will no doubt have a headache for at least a year. We will get an mri done i am sure. My stinking phone was out of order for three days. When i got it fixed i was calling around to every doc i could get a hold of. My son does not have insurance. GP should help with referals. I really do not think my neurologist will see him without insurance. I may have to take him up to publicaid. They get reimbersment from the violent crimes fund.
I think the way we will do it is have the GP order the MRI at the hospital. They have to do it regardless of insurance. Then take the MRI to the neurologist and pay for that appiontment.
The neurologist has an MRI in his office but i think they would want better insurance than violent crimes victim funds. The clinic said it takes up to a year for them to pay.
When my sisters husband beat her a year ago he saw her right away. Then when Dad got hit by a car i got him in right away.
We did find out that my GP is very knowledgable about treating head injuries. When sis got beaten Doc said that her headaches could last up to two years. She saw two neuro's and she had brusing of the brain. All they ever did for her was give her a couple of handfuls of pills to take every day. She of course was hurting every where for about ten days before she was able to comprehend what had happened to her. Then I said well give me your paper work. I said you have a contusion of the brain thats why you are having Migrains. She then freaked out evry night at bed time afraid to go to sleep. Thought she might not wake up. I sent her to get an MRI so she could get a good nights sleep.
For my son yes we know he has a head injury. Eye doctors can tell alot. Even the docs at the hospital checkout your brain function with eye test. Even most of the rarer diseases are dxed with help from an eye doctor. But I assure you if my son gets any worse i will get him in an mri machine. And probably even if he doesn't get worse we will get him a MRI.
Milly, I've been following your posts about your son. Keep up the good work and please push for that MRI.
Lori - there is a difference between good nursing and common mistakes and if I remember correctly, over 750,000 people a year have 'events' because of improper medication and medical mistakes. I'm pretty darn sure that includes your hospital.
Remember, I am a medical error magnet. When I am hospitalized, I focus on the nurses. I figure they are the most likely to keep me alive. I bring in pizza and cookies. My hubby gets mad, saying its not necessary, but it's the only reason I'm alive after the time I almost hemorrhaged to death during a miscarriage. That's when I instituted my 'cookies can save your life' policy. I highly recommend any person being hospitalized try this method of 'bonding' with the nurses.
However, even with this policy, at the top hospital Lev raves about, this has happened.
1) At night, a nurse tried installing another (2nd) IV and when hubby stopped her, and kept asking her what she was doing, she went out into the hall to reread her orders, and realized she was in the wrong room. I was told any more fluids could have killed me as I was there for bloodclots.
2) My father was given the wrong meds, against what was in his chart, and ended up 'time traveling' with hallucinations as a reaction. This was the beginning of the end. They made so many errors with him it's amazing. Suffice to say, I'm with Jas on this one. Some of my family are still convinced they killed him. I am not, but they are.
And my personal favorite -
3) They messed up my baby's appointments when she was 9 months old and we ended up not seeing the orthopedist for a necessary follow up. We caught the mistake and when rescheduling the appointment were told, 'don't worry, if her hip hasn't seeded correctly, we'll just re-break her hip". All with a happy grin! I am rescheduling here to verify they even knew what to look for then.
This is only the top 3 - this list is endless if you count all the things they've done to me or family members, some of whom WORK at the hospital. And all over 2 years ago - BEFORE I became my own advocate and when I still believed totally in Western Medicine and 'doctors and nurses can do no wrong'.
Amazingly, since I've started watching out for myself and my family, only ONE bad occurance has happened. And that was the Armour Thyroid fiasco; a bizarre reaction to medication and really nobody's fault because who would have thought that possible. I mean, the docs and the pharmacists should have caught it, but it wasn't 'incompetence".
You know, I'd have expected and backed up a commentary about how nurses are overworked (true), paid squat (true), how hospitals go out of their way to hire LPN's or lower wage assistants etc. (true) instead of qualified nurses (true). Instead you berate the victims of incompetence.
Pip
While I don't advocate breaking the law as the man in the article did, I do believe it is necessary to be that vigilant. And Lori, while I am glad to hear your hospital is better, the hospitals I and my family members have stayed in have not been. As Pip said, I am sure there are many contributing factors as to why things are the way they are. But the end result for the patient is that they and their families have to be very careful.
I could give my litany of mistakes and problems, but instead, I will just tell you about one thing that just seemed sad to me. In July, my diabetic hubby was admitted for an infected foot puncture (yes, I will agree he should have done many things to prevent this, but there we were nonetheless). When he was delivered to the room, and installed in the bed nearest the door, I immediately noticed garbage...food garbage, medical waste, etc...all over the other side of the room, including both patient tables, the other bed, and on the floor on the way to the bathroom. It took me literally hours of asking every person who came to the room before I could get them to make just one phone call to get someone to clean it. My husband asked when the other patient was coming back (assuming he was out for tests or something) and they told us that person had been discharged days before. All I needed was for my husband's infected foot to be stepping on somebody else's medical garbage on the floor (or slipping on it and falling) while he made his way to the bathroom.
Interesting article. Glad you posted it.It seems that every time we have a diebetic in the hospital they get them all messed up. I understand that they some times have to do fasting test. But i think it has also to do with the fact that diet is different. Granddad has a piece of Grandmothers Pinnapple upside down cake before bed so his bloodsugar does not drop. They do not have good stuff like that in hospitals I did find some pretty good cookies last week I think we will try that next time.. Lorster...I used to agree with you about the medical profession...they saved my mother's life 20 years ago.
However, the past eight weeks in three different health care settings the health care industry has shown a different side.
My mother went to the ER with a stage four wound on her buttocks which was being monitored by a visiting nurse. The doctor placed the same bandage back on her buttock, said it was weaping and sent her home. We did not know it was at a stage four at the time. This was a Thursday night. She went to the ER again the following Monday and was immediately admitted and started on a wound vac. There was no skin left on her buttock and the bone was protruding.
She was then transferred to another facility for IV antibiotic treatment and wound care. She needed to still be on the wound vac and had the irrigation technique administered. She will need skin grafting on her buttocks. Three times over the course of two weeks the nurse forgot to give her the antibiotic. The full bag was left on the rack until it was discovered by the nurse the following shift. In one case the nurse wrote that she gave her the antibiotic when she had not. After the first and second time, I contacted the nursing supervisor yet it didn't seem to make a difference to anyone.
In the third and current facility, the doctor increased my mother's pain medication. On the second shift, the nurse gave my mother double the increase. She had a severe reaction as a result of this nurses mistake.
And these are the errors we identified and the hospitals admitted to...well not the ER doctor yet. We will not file a lawsuit. However, once we get the medical records, I intend to file a complaint against the ER doctor. We also have pictures as to what my mother's wound looked like one week after treatment and it is not pretty.
After eight weeks of being in the hospital, she has another two weeks to go before grafting can take place.
Also, she is an amputee who has to use a commode next to her bed because she cannot get to the bathroom at the current time. This is a woman with an open wound in her buttock which is at increase risk of infection. No one...nurses, aides...want to empty the commode for her. My sister and I have done it but we are not always there when it is full.
Because of my mother's health issues we have a long history with the health care profession and it was never like this before...at least that we knew about. At one time I too would have defended the health care profession but those days are long gone.
Patti372008-10-05 02:03:02Pip...just a sidebar to hospitals hiring lpns instead of nurse.
My sister in law is an lpn who worked at the same hospital for over 25 years. About two years ago they layed off ALL the lpns because they only wanted RNs or BSNs.
[QUOTE=Patti37]Lorster...I used to agree with you about the medical profession...they saved my mother's life 20 years ago.
However, the past eight weeks in three different health care settings the health care industry has shown a different side.
My sister was having blood clots and a blood test indicated she had leukemia. Her doctor said he was sure it was a false reading from her other medications but they'd repeat the test in two weeks. They repeated the test and it was still positive for leukemia. Still he said it was a false reading. My sister kept insisting to me that she TRUSTED her wonderful doctor and wouldn't push for other tests. Less than six weeks later, my sister was admitted to emergency and had immediate abdominal surgery (gall bladder, appendix and intestines almost expoding with infection, they also did a colostomy); she was in the late stages of leukemia! She died two weeks later.
By the way, she was at a large Kaiser hospital which had signs posted all over that they were a latex-free environment (she was allergic to latex). After a week of intense pain and inflammation around her catheter, someone discovered that the catheter was made of LATEX.
When she was semi-comatose and had only a couple days to live, I instructed the nurses to discontinue bed baths which were agony for her (her entire body was grossly swollen and it took four people to roll her over to bathe her). I left a family member in charge and went home to get a couple hours sleep. When I came back, I discovered they had done the bed bath against my expressed instructions (I was her designated power of attorney for health care person, which was noted on her chart). The family member said he'd had to "leave the room" during the bath because he couldn't bear my sister's screams.
I was hospitalized in February and twice nurses tried to give me the wrong medication. I'm also latex-allergic and there were signs around my bed, but I had to tell virtually EVERY nurse and medical worker who came in to do tests etc. to take off the latex gloves and put on the others. Early on I asked for a laxative, but after severarl days of subsequent diarrhea, I discovered that the nurses had continued to give me the laxative twice a day. I thought I "recognized" all the meds by then and didn't ask - but you'd think a nurse would ask if you still needed a laxative after almost a week.
I could go on and on. But I'm scaring myself. I am having hip replacement surgery next week. God help me.
Added: I should note here that my sister's husband did not want to pursue a suit against my sister's doctor. I wrote a letter and talked to Kaiser's ombudsman, but I myself was too sick to pursue any further action (I had surgery for a ruptured Achilles tendon just a few days before my sister went into the hospital and, because I was on my feet for two weeks with my sister, I got an MRSA infection and subsequent surgery for THAT).
My sister's husband was sick at the same time as she was in the hospital (he had a different doctor). He threw up constantly and lost an incredible amount of weight. His doctor prescribed tranquilizers for stress. A month after my sister died, they FINALLY did tests on him and discovered that HE had esophegal cancer. He's had chemo and surgery and is recovering fairly well, although they have since found "spots" of cancer (??) on his lung and back.
Cat E. Clysm2008-10-05 08:26:45 I am lucky that the worst thing that's happened in a hospital (so far) is being awakened in the middle of the night and taken down to the basement of the building for a stress test. The transport guy wouldn't even wait while I got my shoes on and didn't know where I was going!!! When I found out what they planned to do, I was trying to tell the technician that I had RA and could not walk a treadmill and didn't have shoes anyway. She focused on the shoes and told me I could walk on it without shoes. Luckily an employee who was in another room heard the conversation and came out and looked at my wristband and at the orders and discovered they had the wrong patient. (Same last name different floors). He made a joke and said it's a good thing I wasn't sent to surgery. I also had a very strange hospital doctor who kept insisting I stop eating meat and try a raw diet. One nurse tried to give me the wrong meds and got mad at me when I asked her what the pills were. Other than all that, the nursing staff were great and I survived my stay.
BTW, in this area RN's are paid between and per hour with an average of . Not too shabby, but they are still short of nurses and are using traveling nurses in most of the hospitals.
Well my hospital is now nice to me and my family because i reported them last year. So do not be afraid to report them. Of course i myself have not been back scince my last kidney infection. But i am there unfornately alot because of family members.
Ann I am glad you survived your stay. Check your bill make sure you were not charged for the other persons presedures.
Cat I am so sorry. There have been a time or two in my life when all insisted my blood work must be wrong. Thankfully I am still alive. You know It's any wonder I did not give up when i think of how many times Doctors screamed at me or worse yet laughed. There is one nurse at the hospital that said once years ago. This all has to be one thing and I hope they find it soon. Your sister's story is so sad. I am glad you shared it with us. Maybe someone will read this and it will save there life.
Patti you and your family are in our prayers. I am so sorry.
[QUOTE=lorster]Well, I guess i will have to go to bat for the medical profession. I do not know where you people go to the hospital but that does not sound like the place I work. Where I work, everyone has a name, first and last, not a number. Patients are treated with dignity and respect. If a patient wants to talk to the doctor, we call the doctor, and the doctor either comes to the room or calls them in their room. I would think most nurses would check blood pressures and vitals before administering any cardiac med. And I also question doses of narcotics with patients. I generally will not give a patient the dose of med they want unless it is well documented that the patient is used to that dose through chronic use. You only have to have one patient respiratory arrest on you and then you always question. That is being a good nurse. If those nurses are questioning, they are being careful not to cause harm to a patient.
Americans are spoiled rotten when it comes to health care. They want want want and then when they don't get, they threaten to sue. For many, nothing is good enough. These people need to go to an under developed nation and spend a week in that health care system, then they will come back here and not complain so much. When you rag on a nurse or any other health care professional, you actually increase their chances of making a mistake. I hate patients like that. I will pass them off to another nurse the next day if they have made me nervous and increased my chance of making a mistake. I just do not have the time or energy for those patients. If your family member has a different nurse every day, you may want to ask yourself what kind of patient you are. If you want to help your family member, take a proactive part in their recovery. Offer to help out with their ADL's, go fetch them water, offer to change their gown. Yeah, that is not what you pay good money for but if your nurse can focus his or her energy on the patients health and he/she does not spend the entire day grooming and serving coffee, nursing and medical care will get better. I would also like to invite any of you who have never walked a mile in a nurses shoes, to do so, it will shed a whole new light on the profession. I think you will gain a new understanding of what a nurse really does all day long. Where I work, I am busy. I do not have time to run to the kitchen for drinks and food which seems to be a theme. I do not sit around and talk "smack"(as Lev would call it). I'm sure there are units that do. I hate to hear such a low opinion of nurses by some of you and I'm sure this will continue on this thread.
The article. He did something illegal when he bragged about forging a docs signature. I cannot believe he admitted that in public. Patients like him are a liability to the medical profession. I would report him. [/QUOTE]
The hospital I spoke of, I will never set foot in as a patient. I go to the hospital 10 miles away. My parents go to the crap hospital because they like their doctors, and their doctors are all based at the crap hospital.
I don't know about where you work, but around here (at the good hospital and the crap hospital) they have nurses' aides and techs to handle the "room service" type stuff such as "grooming" and "serving coffee."
I have a good friend who is a nurse at the crap hospital and she refuses to go there as a patient. When I had to call 911 a couple years ago because one of the kids was choking (we got it cleared before the paramedics arrived, so there was no longer an immediate danger), the paramedics told us that if we wanted to get the kid checked out that we should drive him down to the good hospital. They take their own kids to the good hospital, not the crap hospital.
If you "hate" the patients who point out
mistakes made by the medical staff, perhaps it's time you seek a different position.
I worked as a nurses' aide for almost 5 years.
Boy, after reading everyone stories...I'm not sure I want to visit any of your hospitals either. I'm not saying that my hospital is perfect. It is just different. We have all these protocols in place to keep from making med errors. I just happen to follow those practices so that I do not harm a patient. I know some nurses do not and I know mistakes are made which is too bad. I live in a small enough community where personal care is still important. We have 2 aides for 34 patients so we have to share them so I guess you all can guess who does most of their own care. I have a friend who did some traveling to San Francisco for 6 months. She worked in a county hospital there. She said the primary goal of the floor was to make sure your patients were alive at the end of your shift. I thought she was joking. She wasn't.
I am understating this when I tell you all that nurses are run ragged these days. That 65 an hour is not enough for the responsibility the nurse has. I honestly do not know how long I can keep up with the pace of the floor while hospitals continue to build and put marble floors in and buy new equipment (which is necessary in some cases) and then short staff the floor to save a bit of money. This is what is happening and it is sad. Patients are getting hurt because a hospital is trying to save a little money. I don't get it.
Lpn's are being replaced all over the country because most hospitals try to practive primary nursing. We still have Lpns but they are being phased out at our hospital. When you have an Lpn that has a lot of IV doses, that nurse has to find a RN to give the dose so it is not that efficient to have one. I work with some great Lpns though.
I am very sorry people have had such horrible experiences. There is no excuse for mistakes but they do happen. The patient and family really does have to advocate for themselves these days. I am supportive of doctors, a few in my family, etc. But nothing is perfect and you just can't assume.
I was in the ER of the nicest hospital in town, I was having a TIA-like episode that was never explained...anyway...I wasn't a high priority patient, but they took my blood, and whoever took it had wheeled in the cart with the supplies and the labels to put on the blood. So she looked at me and was putting the label on and said "you are sherri smith, right?" (or whatever name). And I was like NO I AM NOT. I know she caught the mistake but still it was scary.
I love my RD but the first time I saw him he basically prescribed antidepressants and exercise. I KNEW I was sick though. But he listened through my tears and said if you were my daughter, I'd say go get a second opinion if you want, and come back if you need to. So I did, despite the fact I knew I was sick and he didn't believe me b/c at the time ALL my bloodwork was perfect. That was off-topic.
Anyway, I like this guy but at my visit he was thinking I'd already been on Plaq., but I hadn't. He was thinking he'd taken x-rays of my hands before, but he hadn't. He was thinking a lot of things that weren't correct and it just pays to not assume and speak up.
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