On His Birthday

Help Me Celebrate His 30 Year Memory and Birthday

This July, my son Michael Louis Corina would have been 30 years old.  A milestone to many people and their families.  Michael (Mikey) died just before my 30^th birthday. I thought I would never celebrate another birthday.  Birthdays became unimportant and even painful. 

Although I never worked at making a day, date or event named after him, he has always been behind almost everything I do.  Patient safety was never about the one boy who died, it’s been about the many children who have died from preventable medical errors and all the families broken because of a medical system that does not include patients (even though

they say it does).

I was not involved in the study that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States.  My work started long before that study was released when I saw this problem was not being addressed. 

Help us continue raising awareness in his memory.

Please consider this year helping make the number 30 meaningful with a donation of $30 (or any amount) which would mean you have thought of my son on his birthday this month.  A recurring donation of $30 will mean you remembered him for a year and will help us at Pulse Center for Patient Safety Education & Advocacy continue our important, lifesaving work.

Its as easy as going to our donation page to make your tax deductible donation!  

Donate Here 

And please visit www.pulsecenterforpatientsafety.org to see what we are doing!

Thank you and feel free to pass it on.

It's Tort Reform Again

What is tort reform and why should it scare you?  One explanation off the internet is: Tort reform refers to proposed changes in the civil justice system that aim to reduce the ability of victims to bring tort litigation or to reduce damages they can receive.

In other words it lowers your chances of bringing a lawsuit against someone who harms you or your family.  Tort reform limits or caps the type or amount of damages that may be awarded in personal injury lawsuits.  Let’s call them for the sake of this post, malpractice lawsuits.

What many people hear when you say the word “malpractice” is money and compensation and sue the doctor or hospital because people want money.  Well, just as some people want money, there are some healthcare professionals who should probably not be practicing medicine,  Just because someone completed school, maybe even got great marks and has been in the business for years doesn’t make them good at their job.

So let’s not call it malpractice. Instead think of medical injury.  An injury or death caused by the care one received while under the care of a medical team.  It could be because of malpractice; negligent professional activity or treatment. Or it could be because nurses are too busy and overworked and miss something.  It could be because there is broken equipment, test results not given to the patient or a wrong diagnosis is given by a caring and otherwise competent healthcare professional.  The patient is still in the center of all this and though many people want to protect the healthcare team from a lawsuit, who is protecting the patient?

A Johns Hopkins study reported just last year that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in thecountry.  Many studies before that have reported the dangers in care patients receive.  These studies were not reported by attorneys and they surely weren’t done by patients.  These studies come from some of the most highly respected medical teams and researchers.  Yet the conversation goes back to affording the right to a patient or their family to collect compensation when injured.

Most people will tell me “I don’t want the money” or “I don’t want to sue”.  I tell them that it is about the money because your attorney has a right to be paid to get you the answers you want or need. In many cases the healthcare professionals will not talk to the patient or family and on a few occasions when I tried to intervene I was told “let them sue us”.

For years, through PulseCenter for Patient Safety Education & Advocacy (formerly PULSE of NY) I have been trying to raise the money to continue our free community educational programs and our bedside advocacy services. We need to protect patients and inform them and their family members of the dangers that the people in healthcare are already aware of. 

So as we start hearing the conversation arise about tort reform once again and the lawyers and doctors fight it out – think of who is informing the patient and helping the family navigate this system.

Some very final thoughts:  

• How much is your family member's life worth and should the state decide their price ahead of time?
• Should this energy be spent on improving medical care by informing the public with patient safety information?  After all isn't it the patient who has the most to lose?
• Why are we talking about capping payments when there are still such a call for improving patient care?
• Why are lawsuits looked at as so awful when this is often the way to get answers.
• Why are the attorneys looked at as the bad guy when it is the healthcare professionals they hire who decide if there is actually a lawsuit / malpractice.
• Thousands of lawsuits or complaints are turned away because there was nothing that would have changed the outcome and that goes for someone who was ill, elderly or very young too.

Addiction - The Big Circle

The Big Circle of Addiction and Dependency

A friend who works in healthcare recently shared an experience of a patient screaming that the patient was in pain and needed pain medication.  My friend knows the history of the patient.  The patient is often called a “drug seeker”.  Someone who is addicted and wants “drugs”.

People in healthcare, my friend explained, rarely have sympathy for drug seekers especially when they are disruptive and loud as this patient was.  The people who were working needed to tend to other patients and the other patients needed peace and quiet – not a screaming drug addict.

I listened and understood what I was hearing, yet I don’t like it. 

We can’t force someone to feel bad for others.  Although we can expect people to treat people with dignity.  I assume this happened.  Let me share my point of view.

In many case (of course not all) people become addicted or dependent following an injury, surgery or other medical reason.  I have been with patients at discharge when they were handed a prescription for pain pills with no discussion about the potential dangers of becoming addicted.  The patient is taking the medication and becomes addicted.  Now they are back in the hospital looking for more. It’s a big circle of blame the patient.

When I hear about high school education teaching young people about becoming addicted to drugs, I am confident that no one thinks it can happen to them.  (I know I don’t believe I would become addicted even though I was addicted to cigarettes and swore I could quit for years before I was able to).

What we can be teaching young people, as I have been doing, is about medication “errors” - mistakes in medication such as look-alike sound alike drugs – nail glue vs eye drops, Clearasil looks like teeth whitener, and generic vs. name brand and yes, pain pills available that you may not need.

In the news I hear over and over someone mention that they started on the road to addiction after root canal, surgery or a broken bone.  It’s never discussed further. Education must start BEFORE the prescription is written.  Or yes, they will be back.

It looks like I have some new material for the Family Centered Patient Advocacy Training coming in October.

Lavern's Law

Changes Needed

Imagine having terrible pain in your leg and going to the doctor who tells you to take some medication and get some rest.  When that doesn’t work you go to physical therapy and then a new medication and more rest.  You follow these instructions and feel worse in the months that follow.  Finally, you wait for another appointment with a doctor a friend recommends who recommends another doctor who sends you to a specialist. 

It takes a few months to get that appointment, work through insurance and finally, a full 18 months following the original misdiagnosis, you get the correct diagnosis that the cancer in your leg has spread throughout your body.  You begin months of treatment concentrating only on saving yourself but it’s too late.  Eight months after the correct diagnosis you find that the treatment, as well as the original diagnosis has been all wrong. Now,  three years after the incorrect diagnosis, you succumb to the cancer leaving your three children under ten years old with no mother.

Your grieving family doesn’t want to sue but they want answers.  No one answers their questions. The doctors or medical practice.  Not even the hospital who cared for you at the very end.  No one responds to phone calls or to letters requesting a meeting.  Now, you need to search for a lawyer and can’t find one.  Read why here:  

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/legislative-malpractice-lavern-wilkinson-article-1.3216684  

Have a comment?  Want to get involved?  Send your messages to info@pulsecenterforpatientsafety.org