Internal Bleeding: The Truth Behind America's Terrifying Epidemic of Medical Mistakes - Hardcover

Wachter, Robert M.; Shojania, Kaveh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1590710169 ISBN 13: 9781590710166

Publisher: Rugged Land, 2004

Synopsis

Imagine an epidemic that kills over one hundred Americans every day. Now stop imagining.

Each year doctors and nurses kill nearly one hundred thousand Americans. By mistake. They operate on the wrong patients, prescribe the wrong drugs, and leave instruments inside body cavities after surgery. Meanwhile, hospitals spend billions on new gadgets, marble lobbies, and slick billboards even as safety continues to be ignored.

Until now.

Internal Bleeding exposes the dark secrets behind the glistening facade of modern medicine. Doctors Robert Wachter and Kaveh Shojania, professors at one of America's leading medical schools and two of the world's foremost authorities on medical mistakes, shatter the silence to tell the dramatic and compelling stories of real patients betrayed by a system they trusted to save them.

Through these stories, the authors reveal the inner workings, gut-wrenching dilemmas, and heartbreaking tragedies of our overburdened, understaffed health care system. Internal Bleeding provides an insider's view of how professional caregivers think, feel, and operate-facts that every patient and family must know to avoid becoming just another "mistake."

In the groundbreaking tradition of Fast Food Nation, Internal Bleeding paints a vivid and unforgettable picture of a system gone terribly wrong, and what doctors, nurses, hospital CEOs, and policy makers must do to make it right.

About this title

Review:

With a mix of horrifying medical accidents and warmly logical problem solving, Internal Bleeding provides a serious, if graphic, look at an industry where a simple mistake can lead directly to death. Happily, authors (both are medical doctors) Robert Wachter and Kaveh Shojania have as many practical solutions as they have tragic errors. Generally based on updated systems and protocols in processes like computerized prescription writing and physically initialing specific body parts to be operated on, their solutions are both sympathetic and angry. Pointing out impatient, overworked or generally stubborn doctors and nurses that are resistant to changing procedures, they also are quick to detail the overwhelming combination of low funds and the drive for profit that keep hospitals from always providing the optimum working (and healing) conditions. Most helpful to nervous patients (and you'll almost certainly be nervous after reading this) is a short chapter offering advice on how to insure you're well informed on all aspects of your health care. While the language--and solutions--presented are often complex, the knowledgeable, personal slant provided by both authors lends a new perspective to the continuing debate between abstract policies and daily practices in health care. --Jill Lightner

From the Back Cover:

"Internal Bleeding is utterly compelling. Dramatic and unflinching, it gives us both the stories of what really happens when things go wrong in medicine and the research that explains what needs to be done. The writing is clear. The ideas are startling. And the tale is important. Wachter and Shojania have written a book that matters." -Atul Gawande, bestselling author of Complications

"Internal Bleeding is ER meets Fast Food Nation. By pulling back the curtain to show us the hidden world of doctors and nurses, it paints a remarkable and unforgettable picture of how medical mistakes happen, and what must be done to cure this modern epidemic. It is a fascinating and essential read for both patients and medical professionals." --David Kessler, M.D., J.D., Commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration, 1990-1997.

"The authors have achieved something quite special. The lay reader will journey inside the complex world of medical care today and gain an understanding of the strengths, weaknesses and humanity behind the headlines about medical errors. For any healthcare professional laboring every day to make what they do for patients better and safer, this book is invaluable. It is full of insights, learning and guidance that will help them create and keep the 'culture of safety' that hospitals must achieve for patients in spite of shrinking resources and increasingly complex technology. Read this book." --Dick Davidson, President, American Hospital Association

"Health care could be far, far safer than it is today, but not without widespread public understanding of the nature and extent of its risks. Which brings us to Internal Bleeding-a disciplined, vivid, responsible, and appropriately disturbing exploration of the problems, and the possibilities, in patient safety. Read it, and then demand-and expect-a safer health care system. " --Don Berwick, M.D., President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement

About this edition

• Publisher: Rugged Land
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1590710169
• ISBN 13: 9781590710166
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448