The Doctor, by Sir Luke Fildes (1891) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Only a handful of family and friends have known about what happened up until now. Before I felt like I could write to an audience I needed to make sure that my motivation for telling my story was to help others rather than having a blog pity party for myself. I needed to sort through why this story is so important for others to hear. I had to find the strength to expose myself for what I did. I filed a medical malpractice lawsuit and that didn’t happen to be on my bucketlist of “fun” things to accomplish in life. In fact, my career was centered around clinicians, their practices, and hospitals and many of our discussions centered around that patient that pounced on the opportunity to sue a doctor for money.
When I would hear people talk about clinicians negatively, I would always say that you never hear about the good that clinicians do you only hear about the mistakes. I was the clinician’s cheerleader. I really did think the way most of the medical community thought. Patients who sue were trashy opportunists.
I was wrong! The medical community is living on another planet. It took something that almost killed my unborn child and myself to open my eyes to how the medical community is turning a blind eye to the amount of adverse events that injure or kill patients. You have probably heard stories of medical negligence before, but until it happens to you or a loved one you will never fully appreciate being on the receiving end of medical negligence.
The medical community is spending money on study after study to determine why adverse events or medical error rates are on the up. They are spending insane amounts of money on ehr systems, new apps, etc to assure patient safety. Unfortunately, I feel those things do more harm, because they bombard the clinicians with new systems to learn and ways to input information when they just need to do their JOB. Good ole fashion paying attention to the task at hand is what is going to protect patients in the end. Communication between team members is what is going to protect patients. Talk people!
I asked my husband after the trial ended what he would have done on July 6, 2009 if the physician came out of the OR and told him that he was sorry that they tried everything but unfortunately they could not save me. His explanation to you was that I had an underlying heart problem and I had passed away from a heart attack due to that condition. I reiterated that I wanted him to tell me what he would have done at the time. He looked tearfully at me and said I would have thanked them for trying to save you and I would have given you a proper burial. I asked my parents the same thing. They replied with the same response. I was not shocked. When you lose someone who is perfectly healthy you go into to shock. You go through the motions. You accept the explanation given by the doctor, because he is a doctor!
Why do people think they cannot question a physician or hospital clinician/employee? You are paying for their service. They are working for you. If something does not feel right, then you put that big bright spotlight on them and fire question after question after question. If they do not like it, then go find another physician. If they do not like it, go find another one. Patients and their loved ones need to understand that clinicians are held to a hirer standard for a reason and that reason is that they are dealing with living, breathing human beings. We are not a major appliance! We do not come with a warranty!
I really started to do some heavy thinking. If I would have died that morning and my husband would not have questioned and my parents would not have questioned, then how many people die each year in a hospital or at home under some type of medical supervision due to a medical error because their loved one did not question the physician or institution? How many unnecessary deaths due to medical negligence occur each year are not reported? I never saw one single, solitary independent autopsy at the Forensic Center due to a possible medical error. Not one! I have never heard of any hospital performing routine autopsies when medical negligence was suspected. I do not think I would trust the hospital autopsy findings. They know that if the findings show negligence occurred then they are at risk of being sued.
I was looking through my twitter feed and came across this article and I was stunned. The article was titled Without Autopsies, Hospitals Bury Their Mistakes and it was exactly what had been creeping around in my busy little brain. Without autopsies how do we know if an error occurred? Do not rely on the hospital to investigate. You do the investigating and order an independent autopsy at another facility for the truth.
If we just accept what a juror told me about my case that “Stuff Happens!” and just bury it, then shame on us. Bad stuff happens and it is up to us to protect and educate ourselves. Never accept an explanation that does not feel right in your gut. We have every right to ask any question we want the answer to and if we do not like that answer then we have every right to investigate.
Until my next post I would like for you to chew on this review titled Death By Medicine by Gary Null, PhD et al. Please download the PDF from this site.
