Sunday, January 13, 2013

Keeping Patients Safe: A Case Study Of A Harvard Medical School Student and Her Mom

What A New Doctor Learned About Medical Mistakes From Her Mom by Marshall Allen.  ProPublica.  January 9, 2013.

In this interview, the young doctor who was at the time of her mother's illness,  a first-year medical student, tells of how difficult it was to keep her mother safe in the hospital.  Caring and qualified staff are not enough.  Actual negligence is rarely the problem.  Design issues, handoffs, confusion about drug names and labels, holes in coverage by staff with needed expertise, complexity, and overbooking of staff are some of the issues addressed.  She also addresses how the experience of caring for her mother impacted how she practices medicine.

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