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Bad Medicine: Daffy Doctors & Medical Mishaps

Ahem back to the maggots..
i've heard that because maggots only eat dead flesh hpsitals use them to clean wounds.
 
RoseSnape said:
Ahem back to the maggots..
i've heard that because maggots only eat dead flesh hpsitals use them to clean wounds.
Click to expand...

This is true although you have to be careful what type you use because some eat living flesh. Maggots are now farmed and harvested for medical use. Somewhere I have a book called Honey, Mud, Maggots which goes into great detail on the subject of maggots and medicine. Well worth looking out for if you have fortean/medical interests.
 
The funniest one has to be my Mother's diagnosis 3 years ago.....

Ear infection, when it was infact a stroke that almost killed her!!!

Oh and a nurse told my Dad that "There are people sicker than you on the ward" and she really didn't know what he was doing there. The really funny thing was, he was dead 3 weeks later! Oh how we laughed!

(Same hospital I my hasten to add and before anyone gets offended I'm not taking a pop at the NHS or nurses and hospitals per se. The care my Dad received in Barts was second to none and the neurology unit at Addenbrookes was faultless. )
 
Tyger Lily, I'm sorry to hear about your parents' treatment. As you say, there are many, many wonderful doctors and nurses working for the NHS. Unfortunately, there are also a few crass uncaring ones.

My Dad has had a series of mini-strokes earlier this year. Nothing life-theatening, but scary none the less and it really doesn't help when the doctor just says "take paracetemol". He had to ask for a second (and third!) opinion before the GP would even arrange an appointment to see a neurologist :( Unfortunately events overtook the waiting list and he was rushed to hospital unconcious (He recovered, apart from a slight facial twitch and a tendency to do idiotic things such as climb up obviously unsafe ladders, he's as good as new :) )

Actually, now I think about it, the old dear always did idiotic things - must be where I get it from!

Jane.
 
Another NHS 'nasty': when my dad went to the doctor because of severe headaches and dizzy spells and loss of balance, she offered him a surgical collar. He was, in fact, dying of secondary cancer in the cerebellum . . . :(

Carole
 
One GP assured me that the pain in my lower stomach was
definitely not appendicitis. At three in the morning I was in
Casualty and had emergency surgery the next day for one
of the nastiest ruptured appendices the house surgeon had
seen.

The Casualty Doctor initially wanted to know why we had not
recontacted the GP instead of landing at the hospital. It had
more than a little to do with the "fibroids" which she had
breezily assured my mother were not cancer. Fatally they were. :(
 
Don't read this if pregnancy makes you queasy!

I once had an obstetric 'incident' (ie something went messily wrong during pregnancy- I will spare you the details!) which resulted in my doctor proclaiming me 'no longer pregnant' and attempting to send me for the appropriate minor surgery.

I refused, saying I was sure I was still preggy, and insisted on a scan, with which the patronising GP humoured me. My (ahem) 'miscarriage' is now in his second year of physics at Oxford.
 
In the next month or two I have to go for a minor exploratory op on my wonky knee (which, ironically, has given hardly any problems for weeks now!)

But after reading this thread, coupled with half watching hospital comedy 'tlc' last night, I'm now convinced they'll end up amputating my good leg! :eek!!!!:
 
for the past 6 years i have been undergoing regular post cancer check ups. this involves a good old 'Touchy Feely' and a chest X-Ray.

In one of my last check ups, they instigated new system, whereby my X-ray was sent to a sorting room before being handed to me to take to the consultant. well, i got to the docs office, he popped the x-ray on the lightbaord thingy, and said 'are you wearing a necklace'
'NO'
'Oh, err, i was just wondering what this f***ing great shadow on your right lung was'
'err, xcuse me?'
'err, i think i should go and see the head man with this.'
Off he trots for 20 minutes to quietly shit my pants thinking i was F***ed
Comes back..
'Not to worry, you have been given the wrong X-ray. we took 20 minutes to find out it wasn't your name on it'

Well bugger me sideways. thank christ for that!
 
A lot of them don't seem to realise that our lives are actually important to us, 4imix, and so lack any shred of sensitivity.
A useless GP assured my mother she was suffering from "stress" when she was throwing up every morning and having dreadfull stomach pains. A locum found out it was advanced cancer. The same stupid GP neglected to tell me that resting in the first stages of M.E. might be a good idea. :grrr: with hilarious consequences :rolleyes:
 
NHS Rulez !!

beakboo said:
A lot of them don't seem to realise that our lives are actually important to us, 4imix, and so lack any shred of sensitivity.
Click to expand...

I have to say beakboo, in defense of the NHS, that from the day i was diagnosed, my treatment was exemplary. my GP saved my life, it was a whirlwind getting into hospital, treatment chemo, then recovery. everyone ivolved was ablolutely bloody marvellous, and i have nothing but praise for them. the above mishap i can forgive. scary though it was!

Thank You NHS!! :yeay: :D

Though i'm sorry you sound like you got a bad 'un :(
 
Just lost my future father in law two months ago. He suffered from the beginning of March complaining of stomach ailments, went to his GP who instead of getting him straight to a barium to find out where the obstruction was, gave him laxatives. After a month, dad in law went back and surgery was prescribed. Large intersucession (sp?) where the intestine loops back on itself and goes gangrenous was found and repaired. Bear in mind that surgeon was not a gastric specialist and all went well for a few weeks till dad in law lost a humungeous amount of weight (think Belsen and you get the picture). Went back to doc, doc left practice before accurate diagnosis was done. Went to new doc who opened him up again only to find that the surgery was so well done that the stomach was attached to the small intestine thus precluding the need for the rest of the digestive system. Repaired that but did not check was previous doc prescribed for the "blockage". Dad in law withered away and started passing out, each time to go back into hospital, get attached to a drip and when all was well, get let out again. The last time the docs realised that something was seriously wrong and discovered that medicine prescribed was actually to clear the stomach acids of excess cholesterol (normally for obese people suffering from that condition) and the biggest side effect was the drastic loss of electrolytes and minerals. To cut a long story short, Dad in law went into kidney failure due to dehydration, complicated by malnutrition. Came right for a whole week then went into respiratory failure which was a nice way for the doctors to make their xmas bonus from the ICU fees. Sedated Dad in Law, then couldn't bring him round, took three weeks to decide that he was in a "persistive vegetative state" and very deep coma. Not once did the dear old doc discuss the implications with Mom in Law but right at the end after the pneumonia and the liver failure when she finally had enough courage to bring it up with him, did he turn around and say that it would be unethical for him to switch off the machines. Now I ask you, which would have been the lessor of two evils, switching off the machines when they knew there was no higher brain function or keeping him alive artificially thus boosting their ICU fees for nearly 6 weeks. The cost in terms of grief is immeasurable because we watched him waste away. The cost in monetary terms is disgusting, Three quarters of a million (ok rands which is peanuts compared to pounds but a lot to us down here in Africa) which thankfully the private medical aid paid for. Oops did I forget to mention that this was the best private hospital in the area where they lived.

There is a special place in hell for doctors that do this sort of thing to their patients.
 
I forgot the best part.

After all the drama and the stress and the absolute nightmare of watching a loved one attached to machine, guess what the cause of death was listed on the death certificate as:

At last count I had dehydration, kidney failure, malnutrition, liver failure, respiratory failure and pneumonia as well as a wee case of sepsis (no golden staph though), persistant vegetative state and atrophy

Yup, the doc wrote "Massive Stroke" and in one foul swoop, deleted any evidence of malpractice.

:hmph:

Wanted to report the hospital and docs to the relevant authority but was talked out of it out of respect for my future mom in law.
There is karmic justice out there, I just have to wait for it.
 
You cannot do this for your MinL's sake but

You must go to the Registrar of Deaths and say that you believe that the doctor signing the declaration incorrectly ascribed the cause of death. This is an offense.

For future reference you if you are next of kin to someone who has suffered from such malpractise ask for a copy of their medical records. If you have power of attourney they have to give you those records.

Then you go to the Registrar

then the Coroner

and the police

and the General Medical Council

and you find a nice, hungry national newspaper and offer it the story for free.

Then sit back and watch the insects scuttle for cover.
 
Airport Detector Finds Tool In Woman's Stomach

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/americas/12/16/canada.woman.stomach.reut/index.html

WINNIPEG, Canada (Reuters) -- It took an airport metal detector to give a Canadian woman a clue to why she was suffering from persistent stomach aches four months after having abdominal surgery.

Despite the detector's beep, airport security guards in Regina, Saskatchewan, were unable to find any metal on her body before the woman's October flight to Calgary, Alberta.

Several days later the woman had an X-ray.

It showed a 30-centimeter (11.7-inch) long, 5 cm wide surgical retractor, used to hold incisions open, had been left in her abdomen after surgery four months earlier at the Regina General Hospital.

The woman now wants compensation from the surgeon and the hospital, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Monday.

"I would think that it would be an understatement to say surprise, probably more like horror, that this surgical device was left inside her abdominal cavity," the woman's lawyer, Jeff Scott, told the CBC.

After surgery, medical staff are required to account for each piece of equipment used, said an official from the Regina health authority, which oversees the hospital.

"Systems are never perfect and, as always, we strive to do the best we can," Brian Laursen, the senior vice-president of the health authority, told the CBC.

"But inevitably, in any system, there tends to be the occasional failure," he said.

The woman had surgery to remove the retractor a day after her X-ray. She told the CBC she is still in pain.
 
thats why so many canadians

come to the USA for their "medical needs" (here in florida I get alot of canadians into my shop and they have double residency so they can get their medical stuff done here) Capitalist tend to be better I guess than "socilist care"
 
Ah, but the NHS don't bankrupt you when you get the 'flu or operate on you without cause to get commission from the drug companies....
 
Both of you are right. We have the best health care in the world, which sadly is completely subservient to the insurance and drug companies.

That said, there's lots of people who die stateside every year because of malpractice.
 
So that's why the blasted metaldetector goes off every time I go through it at Gatwick...
 
Bump! Synth's new thread added to existing one. Sort of a transplant, I guess!
 
Bump! Another thread graft.

And another story:
Surgery tools left in 1,500 patients on average a year

Sponges, clamps top list
of objects left behind

BOSTON, Jan. 15 — Surgical teams accidentally leave clamps, sponges and other tools inside about 1,500 patients nationwide each year, according to the biggest study of the problem yet. The mistakes largely result not from surgeon fatigue, but from the stress arising from emergencies or complications discovered on the operating table, the researchers reported.

IT ALSO happens more often to fat patients, simply because there is more room inside them to lose equipment, according to the study.
Both the researchers and several other experts agreed that the number of such mistakes is small compared with the roughly 28 million operations a year in the United States.
“But no one in any role would say it’s acceptable,” said Dr. Donald Berwick, president of the Boston-based nonprofit Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
The study was done by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard School of Public Health, both in Boston. It was published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

INSURANCE RECORDS CHECKED
The researchers checked insurance records from about 800,000 operations in Massachusetts for 16 years ending in 2001. They counted 61 forgotten pieces of surgical equipment in 54 patients. From that, they calculated a national estimate of 1,500 cases yearly. A total of million was paid out in the Massachusetts cases, mostly in settlements.

Two-thirds of the mistakes happened even though the equipment was counted before and after the procedure, in keeping with the standard practice.
Most lost objects were sponges, but also included were metal clamps and electrodes. In two cases, 11-inch retractors — metal strips used to hold back tissue — were forgotten inside patients. In another operation, four sponges were left inside someone.
The lost objects were usually lodged around the abdomen or hips but sometimes in the chest, vagina or other cavities. They often caused tears, obstructions or infections. One patient died of complications, but the researchers withheld details for reasons of privacy.
Most patients needed additional surgery to remove the object, but sometimes it came out by itself or in a doctor’s office. In other cases, patients were not even aware of the object, and it turned up in later surgery for other problems.

HIGHER RATE IN EMERGENCY SURGERIES

The study found that emergency operations are nine times more likely to lead to such mistakes, and operating-room complications requiring a change in procedure are four times more likely. A rise of one point in body-mass index, a measure of weight relative to height, raises the chances of such a mistake by 10 percent.
The length of the operation or the hour of day does not appear to make a difference, suggesting that fatigue does not cause such mistakes.
“It tends to be in unpredictable situations,” said lead author Dr. Atul Gawande of Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Some other researchers said fatigue could promote such mistakes in a way undetected by this study.

MORE X-RAYS NEEDED
The Boston research team suggested that more X-ray checks be done right after those operations where such errors are most likely. Metal instruments and radiologically tagged sponges show up in such checks.

Eventually, wands similar to supermarket bar-code readers might be developed to detect missing equipment, researchers said.
Dr. Sidney Wolfe, health research director of the public-interest lobby group Public Citizen, said the real number of lost instruments may be even higher, because hospitals are not required to report such mistakes to public agencies. He said they should be.

However, some others said such mistakes are so rare — occurring about 50 times in 1 million operations — that figuring out how to prevent them could be difficult.

“Something has to be done about this. It’s just a very tough balance to decide. Do we really want to add this hoop for every patient to jump through?” said Dr. Kaveh Shojania, author of a 2001 federal study on medical mistakes.
Lori Bartholomew, research director at the Physician Insurers Association of America, said: “I find it’s going to be difficult to make much more improvement, because some of the risk factors are things that are hard to control.” The Rockville, Md., group represents medical malpractice insurers.
Click to expand...
 
http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/01/18/medical.mistake.ap/index.html

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (AP) -- A hospital apologized for a laboratory mistake that resulted in the amputation of a healthy woman's breasts after she was mistakenly told she had an aggressive form of cancer.

Dr. Daniel Foley, medical director of United Hospital, told KARE-TV in the Twin Cities that the St. Paul hospital had made changes so "this kind of mixup would never happen again."

Linda McDougal, 46, said she was diagnosed with cancer in May 2002 after her doctor had a biopsy performed when a suspicious spot appeared on her mammogram.

McDougal said she was told the cancer was so aggressive that a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation were her only chances for survival. In June, she had the surgery.

Two days later, she was recovering when her doctor visited. "She had bad news," McDougal said. "She didn't know how to tell us other than to just tell us, and immediately I thought I was dying, and she told me I didn't have cancer."

After finding no malignancy in the amputated breast tissue, McDougal said her doctor discovered a mistake in United's laboratory. Tissue from McDougal's biopsy was switched with tissue from another woman.

Foley said the woman who actually had the cancer has been contacted and treated. He would not identify the pathologist at fault, but said the doctor remains with United.

"If you're right 99.9999 percent of the time, you don't want to be that .01 percent because the consequences are serious and we have to be right 100 percent of the time," Foley said.

An attorney representing United's pathologists said the group's insurance company has paid McDougal's medical expenses and lost wages, and will continue to do so.

McDougal said she is fighting several infections and must still undergo several reconstructive surgeries before she decides whether to sue for malpractice.
 
Yes, but the hospital has apologised, so that makes it all right . . .:err:

Carole
 
A woman I knew a few years ago complained to her husband she thought that her bits smelt after she'd given birth to their daughter.

Her husband told her not to be silly and that the bleeding would smell a bit (it does, it's a sort of earthy vegetabley smell although it shouldn't be offensive. If it does, somethings a miss) as it was all the left overs.

Anyhow, she then mentioned it to the nurses and doctors and by the time she went home she complained she was stinking. After about 3 days her husband returned her to the hospital and he too agreed his wife had a certain pungent aroma to her and asked the medics to take a look.

As she was running a high temperature, feeling extremely unwell and her husband was adamant she wasn't leaving until someone did indeed take a look, a doctor had a bit of a poke about only to find that a wad of cotton wool and lint had been left inside her from the delivery and this was the cause of the infection which was making her ill and the smell which was emitting from her nethers.

The hosptial did take full responsilbility and the woman made a full recovery with no adverse effects. :cross eye
 
A follow-up

http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/01/20/cnna.mastectomy.mistake/index.html

(CNN) -- It was the news every woman dreads. Linda McDougal was told she had breast cancer, so she underwent a double mastectomy, and then the news got worse. Doctors admitted it was all a mistake -- she never had cancer, and the surgery was completely unnecessary.

CNN anchor Carol Costello talked with McDougal and her attorney Chris Messerly about the mistake and the consequences, and spoke with Laurel Krause, a doctor at United Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the surgery was done.

COSTELLO: It's just an unbelievable story. So you decide to have a double mastectomy, which is a huge decision in the first place. When did you find out you did not have cancer?

MCDOUGAL: Forty-eight hours after the surgery.

COSTELLO: And how did doctors tell you?

MCDOUGAL: The surgeon walked into my room and told my husband and I that she had some bad news, and there was no way of telling me other than to tell me, and that is that I didn't have cancer.

COSTELLO: So you're lying in your hospital bed, after just going through this horrible surgery, ... what you were feeling?

MCDOUGAL: Well, initially I thought, "Good, because I hope you got it all." And then she said, "You don't seem to understand -- you never had cancer. There was a mix-up."

COSTELLO: And you and your husband then said ...

MCDOUGAL: I think -- I was rendered speechless. I was in shock. And within moments, we were both crying. It was very difficult.

COSTELLO: And did you ask the hospital how this happened? Why it happened? How long did it take you to get over the initial shock to ask those questions?

MCDOUGAL: It took a couple of minutes before the surgeon continued and told me, initially, that slides got mixed up. And then, the next day she called and said that she had done some more checking and that it was more than that.

COSTELLO: What did the hospital tell you when you contacted the hospital about this mistake, and how it could have happened?

MESSERLY: Well, three separate people, including two physicians, failed to check the names and the numbers of the patients -- Linda McDougal and one other person -- and they switched the names on the slides with the pathology sheets. They told some poor woman that she had no cancer at all and told Linda that she did.

COSTELLO: About the other woman, did she eventually undergo a double mastectomy herself?

MESSERLY: We don't know. We have not been told that by the hospital.

COSTELLO: It's been seven months since this procedure. Why did you wait so long before going public about this?

MCDOUGAL: I have had a lot of issues just dealing with it. It's taken me seven months to get to a point where I can really talk about it. I'm still infected. I can't continue with reconstruction ...

COSTELLO: Because of the surgery, you have infections?

MCDOUGAL: I have had secondary surgery.

COSTELLO: Did doctors come up and say we're sorry? What did they do for you?

MCDOUGAL: The only person who ever apologized was my surgeon. I never heard another word from United [Hospital] or the pathologists other than their reaction to the news stories, as I'm coming out with this.

COSTELLO: But Chris, the hospital did agree to pay for her medical bills and back pay and things like that?

MESSERLY: That's news to us. Linda's contact with the insurance company has not made us aware of that. So, they have not stepped up and taken the complete responsibility for the multiple surgeries and everything she's going to have to go through for the rest of her life.

COSTELLO: So, they haven't paid for the surgery that she didn't need?

MESSERLY: Well, she has had insurance pay for all of that. I mean, she does have some ongoing issues, but she is going to have many more surgeries before she's done, and we don't know what the results of those will be.

COSTELLO: Before I talk to hospital officials -- do you plan to sue?

MESSERLY: Absolutely. However, President Bush intends to add additional harm to Linda and other victims. I mean, 98,000 people per year die of medical malpractice, not to mention the hundreds of thousands that are injured, and the president wants to tell them, I don't care what you've been through, we're going to put a cap on your damages of $250,000. (Full story)

COSTELLO: And of course, the reason he's doing that is because there are many frivolous lawsuits filed, and doctor's bills are getting ever more expensive.

MESSERLY: But putting a cap on that will do nothing at all to reduce that, and California has proved that. They put a cap on years ago, and malpractice premiums have gone up and up and up until insurance reform came through.

Doctor: Very sorry for 'tragic mistake'
COSTELLO: OK. We want to get a word from hospital officials. ... Thank you for coming in.

We want to turn now to reaction from United Hospital. Dr. Laurel Krauss, a senior pathologist at United Hospital, ... joins us from Minneapolis. Good morning.

KRAUSE: Good morning.

COSTELLO: How could this have happened?

KRAUSE: First, let me say how very sorry I am for this tragic mistake. This happened, as Messerly describes -- his account is essentially accurate. Two patients' sets of slides were on one tray, and two patients' sets of paperwork, and inadvertently, the pathologist involved picked up the wrong paperwork with the slides and failed to validate the name and identification number on the papers with the name and identification number on the slides.

COSTELLO: Are there not safeguards in place to prevent this from happening?

KRAUSE: There are safeguards in place, and we have put additional safeguards in place since the incident. Our practice at that time was national standard. We have now put additional safeguards of color coding the slides and paperwork. We also have only one patient case per tray of slides, and we have a second pathologist completely review all aspects of the case, validating the color code, the name, the identification number, and having to agree with the first pathologist's diagnosis.

COSTELLO: The pathologist that made the mistake, what happened to him or her?

KRAUSE: This pathologist is still on staff. This individual has been practicing 10 years, has had an exemplary record, and has never made a mistake like this before.

COSTELLO: So no punishment, no suspension?

KRAUSE: An independent investigation both by the hospital and again by our own practice disclosed no prior history of any incidents of this kind. Had there been a practiced pattern, disciplinary action would have been undertaken, but in this case, we were appreciative that the physician who was involved was actually the person who identified the error and disclosed it fully.

COSTELLO: Will the hospital pick up Linda's medical bills, pay for her future surgeries?

KRAUSE: We are collaborating with the insurance company, with the hospital, and with the patient and her family in every way possible to ensure that her lost wages and all medical bills will be compensated.
 
Two emergent accidents.....(it may not make sense but it has a nice ring to it)

My friend Steve was told that he had multiple sclerosis when it turned out to be M.E. He was much relieved when they told him he was wrongly diagnosed, and is all recovered now.

My mum used to run a retirement home, and one day she sent a resident up to the hospital for an xray. The local hospital xrayed the wrong leg and sent her back again, saying she was fine. The lady was sent back a second time as she was still having pain, the xray way done again on the correct leg, and lo and behold- she had a broken ankle.
 
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