I Amputated the Wrong Leg!
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I Amputated The Wrong Leg!
Willie King's wrong leg was amputated in 1995. King's surgeon said he realized he was removing the wrong leg after he had started cutting through the muscle of the 51-year-old diabetic, a retired equipment operator, at University Community Hospital in Tampa. Many more patients are hurt each year by medical errors than hospitals ever acknowledge. "A study done in 1997 revealed that medical errors kill more people every year than AIDS, breast cancer, or car crashes" (Glazer, 139). Medical mistakes are far more common and have been going on longer than most people in America realize. What are we doing to lower the numbers of medical mistakes and what can patients do in the future to prevent these occurrences?
The frequency of medical mistakes in modern medicine is actually old news. "Doctors have been documented as far back as 1955, describing accidents produced by well-intentioned therapy as 'one of the commonest conditions' in a hospital" (Glazer, 150). To excuse these "accidents" doctors claim that they are the product of practicing such complex modern medicine...