You got to the hospital quickly after suffering a medical emergency. However, there was a medication that could have prevented your illness from progressing—or that may have saved your loved one’s life—but the emergency room staff failed to administer the medicine fast enough. How Could…
Yes, the number of nurses in an emergency room matter a great deal for patient safety. Nurses assess patients, provide necessary care, and monitor patients for changing symptoms and conditions. Without nurses, an ER patient’s medical care may be delayed, and the results can be…
Anaphylactic allergic reactions do not have to be deadly. According to Dr. Scott Sicherer, author of Food Allergies: A Complete Guide for Eating When Your Life Depends on it, “The people who die from anaphylaxis are those who had a delay in treatment.” Recognize the Signs of…
Yes. You consented to radiation treatment for breast cancer, lung cancer, or another form of cancer because you believed the benefits outweighed the known side effects. What you didn’t account for, and what you couldn’t predict, were the heart injuries that could come from a…
Tragic accidents can happen whenever human error is a possibility, and researchers are always working to prevent these kinds of accidents. Some accident prevention techniques address specific problems, but other strategies may be applicable across many different disciplines. For example, researchers at the University of…
Your oncologist recommended radiation to treat your breast or lung cancer. You consented to the treatment and believed it to be an essential part of your plan to fight cancer. Yet, you did not consent to a radiation overdose injury, or more specifically, the lung injury that…