| Hospital emergency rooms are high-stress areas | | | | the cancer has spread to other body areas. |
| with each newly-arrived patient bringing | | | | Misdiagnosis is equally dangerous; it leads to |
| unpredictable problems and needing quick and | | | | inappropriate treatments that leave the real |
| appropriate medical care. The staff must think | | | | problem untreated. |
| quickly on their feet and yet stay calm. They | | | | - Patient dumping is an error that has been in the |
| must hurry all their actions and yet remember | | | | news recently. Emergency room patients were |
| every required or useful test or procedure that | | | | forgotten in the rush to treat other patients. That |
| each patient needs. When attending to the latest | | | | has been a fatal error due to untreated |
| arrival, they must not forget or neglect others | | | | respiratory or heart problems. It can also allow |
| who still need something else done. | | | | secondary brain injuries to occur. The original brain |
| So it isn’t surprising that errors are made or | | | | injury must be swiftly identified and measures |
| that some of them are fatal. However, JAMA | | | | must then be taken to prevent a secondary brain |
| (the Journal of the American Medical Association) | | | | injury. An example of that would be a brain injury |
| has published an article stating that more than | | | | involving bleeding in the vision area. If that is not |
| 225,000 people die every year because of | | | | quickly identified and the bleeding reduced, vision |
| medical malpractice. This makes it the third leading | | | | can then be impaired, perhaps permanently. |
| cause of death after heart disease and cancer. | | | | - Emergency room errors are not committed only |
| Granted, not all medical malpractice takes place in | | | | by doctors and nurses. There are also laboratory |
| emergency rooms, but far too much does. In | | | | errors where a lab technician does the wrong test |
| some areas understaffing is a problem; in others it | | | | for an emergency room patient, mixes up the |
| is lack of medical equipment. Regardless of what | | | | records, or contaminates a sample. |
| the reason is for the malpractice, if it happens to | | | | Failure of sterile technique, failure to properly |
| you, do consult a <a rel="nofollow" | | | | monitor a patient, and failure to consult a specialist |
| onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(' | | | | – these errors all leave a patient to suffer the |
| outgoing/article_exit_link');" href= malpractice | | | | consequences of a medical professional’s lack |
| lawyer</a> as soon as you can. | | | | of attention or care. When we enter an |
| A Plethora of Frequent Medical Errors | | | | emergency room, we are trusting our health and |
| - Failure to diagnose is one of the most | | | | even our lives to total strangers and relying on |
| dangerous errors, especially when there is cancer | | | | them to follow accepted standards of care. When |
| present. Successful cancer treatment depends on | | | | they fail to do that, the health consequences can |
| an early start: before the tumor is too large or | | | | be devastating. |