[Villages PL]

Originally Posted by ilovetv

There should also be a book titled, "Top 1,000 Cases Where Doctors Did Everything Textbook Perfectly, But Sh*t Happened Anyway".

That sounds so defensive and totally unnecessary in this discussion. No one ever said that doctors and nurses never work hard to try to save people. But, just because they do, it doesn't help the family of someone who dies because of a simple preventable screwup.

Story 1: Many years ago, a neighbor of mine, a 45 year old long distance truck driver, went to the hospital to have a simple proceedure done. While in the hospital, they gave him the wrong medication and it killed him. He had a wife and two teenage children. That was another town about one hour from the Villages.

Story 2: Several years ago there was a villages news story about two or three women who all received internal damage from rectal exams(colonoscopies). They were all done by the same doctor. From what I understand, he made a tear in each of their colons and sent them home. Well, of course they got very sick as a result. Luckily, as far as I know, none of them died. They had to be scheduled for surgery to repair the damage.

Story 3: A neighbor of mine in the Villages was scheduled to have a stint put into a partly blocked artery(Leesburg Hospital). The artery had a sharp turn in it and the doctor couldn't get the stint to go around the bend. So he stopped. When she woke up he told her what happend and asked her if he could try again later in the afternoon. She said yes and he tryed again. Guess what, it didn't work the second time either. So he told her, "it's okay, you don't need it." She felt sick and stayed overnight. Medicare would only pay for the first try so she got billed several thousand dollars for the second try.

So it's not just about people dying from simple preventable screwups, as in the first example. It's about medical incompetence that often causes needless suffering and/or financial hardship.