ADVANCE Perspective: HIM
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It’s not often that you can call vegging out in front of the TV “research,” but tomorrow is one of those lucky times.
Tuesday’s episode of “Oprah” is all about medical mistakes and measures you can take to prevent them. The show features actor/director Dennis Quaid, who became the center of media attention and public sympathy when his newborn twins were given an incorrect dose of medication that nearly killed them. He’ll return to the hospital where it happened. (Dare I hope they show all the new systems and safety measures they have in place?)
For those of you attending next month’s Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society convention, where Quaid will be keynote speaker, chalk this up as pre-conference prep.
Another segment will include a woman who had a mastectomy, only to find out after the surgery that she didn’t have breast cancer.
Dr. Oz will also be on hand to talk about medical errors and, according to the commercial, offer an important checklist that can help avoid mistakes.
So toss a bag of popcorn in the microwave and tune in tomorrow. If only this could count for continuing education credit …
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I know many suffered from medical mistakes, including myself who had breast cancer misdiagnosed for 17 months. For that reason tuned into Oprah’s medical mistakes show today. I was a little disappointed, though, that she featured a woman who had her breast removed and later found there was no cancer at all. I wish she would have presented a missed breast cancer diagnosis to increase the awareness of this epidemic. For those interested, I recently published a book about the common place of breast cancer misdiagnosis called Breast Lump What Lies Beneath by Robin Gray RN, which can be purchased at Amazon.com.