While we live in a time of great medical advances, serious medical mistakes take an enormous number of lives. By the last count, independent studies suggest that between 200,000 and 400,000 people die each year in...
I’ve got a friend, I’ll call him George, who, for several months, experienced an intense pain on his side. Turned out to be a kidney stone. George had dealt with them before and passed each… Read More
Have you or an immediate family member been rejected for medical treatment, experienced physical or financial harm due to medical treatment or a failure to be treated? Are you a medical worker with a story… Read More
For 30 years, Paul Shuen was one of the city’s most respected obstetricians. Then his nurses noticed something unusual about the way he delivered babies. A story of greed, betrayal and medical misconduct. The labor… Read More
Alex James knew how to exhaust himself. It started on his childhood swim team when his coach, a whistle-blowing, red-faced caricature, demanded he swim to the end of the Olympic-sized pool and back again—without taking… Read More
Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists hold your life in their hands. Here, their shocking stories of what can go wrong—and what has to improve to keep us safe. “It was more than 20 years ago, but… Read More
By Sunnie Bell, RN. I was the nurse in charge of the evening shift at a small hospital. I was enthusiastic and experienced—a top graduate of a prominent nursing school. I had come on duty… Read More
By Bryan E. Bledsoe, DO. I’ll never forget her—in fact, I still have dreams about the look on her children’s faces after she died. Her name was Claire,* and she came into the ER where… Read More
By Robert M. Wachter, MD. I was a second-year medical student at the University of Pennsylvania, and on my second day of rounds at a nearby VA hospital. Penn’s philosophy was to get students seeing… Read More
By Eric Cropp. It was a busy Sunday in the pharmacy at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland. The hospital’s computer system had been down for about ten hours before I started my shift,… Read More