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
By Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD. I was a young doctor doing specialty training in critical care, and I was exhausted. Partway through a 36-hour shift at Johns Hopkins Hospital, I was hungry and hadn’t slept… Read More
By Ken Alltucker, USA Today. Americans borrowed about $88 billion to pay for health care last year, and one infour people skipped care because of costs, according to a new Gallup survey fundedby a nonpartisan… Read More
By Maggie Fox and Lauren Dunn, for NBC News. Medical mistakes — from surgical disasters to accidental drug overdoses — are the No. 3 cause of death in the U.S., behind cancer and heart disease, two… Read More
At least 12 percent of preventable errors caused permanent disability or death, according to a review of studies involving over 300,000 patients. By Linda Carroll, for NBC News. More than 1 in 10 patients are harmed… Read More
By Ken Alltucker, USA TODAY. In an extreme example of angst over expensive medical bills, an elderly Washington couple who lived near the U.S.-Canadian border died in a murder-suicide this week after leaving notes that detailed… Read More
By Kelly Gooch, Beckers Hospital Report. The cost of hospital inpatient services for privately insured individuals is on the rise, according to a new data brief by UnitedHealth Group. An analysis conducted in 2019 of… Read More