Brain surgery goes awry in R.I.

Discussion in '2007 Archive' started by moondg, Dec 14, 2007.

  1. moondg Member
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    One operation went awry after an experienced brain surgeon insisted to a nurse he knew what side of the head to operate on — but got it wrong.
    Another time, a doctor-in-training cut into the wrong side of a patient's head after skipping a pre-op checklist. In a third case, the chief resident started brain surgery in the wrong place, and the nurse didn't stop him.
    All three mistakes happened at the same hospital in less than a year — Rhode Island Hospital, the state's most prestigious medical center and a teaching hospital for the Ivy League's Brown University.
    That was startling enough, but just as surprising was that the errors happened despite an explicit set of required operating-room precautions adopted by the medical profession a few years ago to prevent "wrong-site surgery" mistakes. Those measures include the use of checklists, "time-outs" to double-check everything is correct, and indelible markers to show the surgeon where to cut.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071214...s&printer=1;_ylt=Ammv.OIlq7tgU_LhMBwlLM9H2ocA
    I do not want to go to this hospital. Of course some people do not think I have a brain so it would not be a problem:laugh: .