In 2007, Maribeth Chase underwent what was supposed to be a relatively routine bit of brain surgery — if any brain surgery can be called routine. The neurosurgeon was supposed to go in and drain blood that had accumulated on the surface of her brain. A mistake during the surgery, however, resulted in Chase suffering a brain injury that...
Read MoreThere is no substitute for good communication. It doesn’t matter what the context is, if solid communication is lacking, the chances increase that something will go wrong. In a hospital setting, the risks of failing to communicate often result in a patient’s condition getting worse or death. Considering that such failures are often due to negligence on the part...
Read MoreThe importance of having a thick skin in the medical profession is something that is probably widely understood. Certainly anyone who has pushed through medical school and endured residency training knows it can be a brutal run. But medical training that involves berating, bothering and bullying has also been a staple context of TV medical dramas for years, making...
Read MoreA lot of people around Kansas City may be seeing red in February. It’s not because they are unusually angry. It so happens that February is designated as American Heart Month and red is the color associated with the initiative intended to raise awareness about heart disease. According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the number one...
Read MoreMelissa Henricks has dreams. The Ballwin, Mo., girl also has a form of cerebral palsy, but her condition isn’t preventing her from pursing one particular dream of learning how to play the flute, thanks to the dedication of 6th grade band teacher, Kevin Smith. Many cases of cerebral palsy are the result of injury to the infant during delivery....
Read MoreA new study in the journal “JAMA Psychiatry” revealed some disturbing information about people who have suffered traumatic brain injuries. After sorting through data on more than 218,000 people who had suffered TBIs, researchers concluded that having experienced such an injury was associated with a much greater risk of premature death seemingly unrelated to the injuries themselves. The researchers...
Read MoreAccording to a recent paper in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, some 70 percent of doctors never bother to clean their ties. Unfortunately, about a third of those ties test positive for Staphylococcus aureus — the bacteria that causes staph infections. Those white lab coats doctors wear? According to the paper, a survey found that the average...
Read MoreAs professional singer with the Nashville Opera, a Cincinnati woman was aware that having a C-section could endanger her career. What she didn’t expect was that an episiotomy during natural childbirth could force her to put her career on hold indefinitely. In fact, she couldn’t have expected it, because she was never told an episiotomy might be performed. Moreover,...
Read MoreOn May 29 of last year, about two weeks after earning her medical degree, a 26-year-old Maryland woman died of a brain hemorrhage. According to a wrongful death lawsuit brought by her family, her life could have been saved if doctors hadn’t failed to adhere to “some of the most basic and fundamental principles in medicine.” Furthermore, the hospital...
Read MoreOn behalf of Robert Kingsland of Dempsey Kingsland Osteen posted in Failure to Diagnose on Saturday, January 11, 2014. Even to someone on the outside of the medical field, it would seem as though diagnosing a disease or condition would be difficult. There are endless possibilities for why someone is feeling ill or in pain. Pinpointing the exact cause...
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