Lachlan
En-Route
I work in a very high tech clinical laboratory in a large hospital. No room for mistakes. Mistakes will kill people. Not allowed to make errors.
Do you have to fail or make mistakes to succeed in your career?
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I work in a very high tech clinical laboratory in a large hospital. No room for mistakes. Mistakes will kill people. Not allowed to make errors.
BellyUpFish
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Backtothesand
Yep.. I'm not allowed to perform at a level any lower than perfect.
I'm an assistant reactor operator. We don't get "do overs."
Lachlan
En-Route
Can't you just melt it down and start over?
Shepherd
Final Approach
Science, guys, not technology. In the theoretical sciences, lots of experiments fail.
denverpilot
Tied Down
A lot of dead people and mistakes to define your "perfect".
One of the companies we do business with specializes in the home health care of thousands injured in that biz. DOE spends a lot of money on it, too.
So you're essentially standing on their shoulders and learned from their mistakes. There were plenty.
denverpilot
Tied Down
No argument here. I was simply addressing his tone that nuclear operators and engineers "can't" make mistakes. Of course they can, and have, and will again.
denverpilot
Tied Down
This was in response to a reply that didn't quote correctly. Anyway... Speaking of IT and bugs... Haha.
Jimmy cooper
En-Route
Your hospital is an exception! hospitals kill 100 thousand people a year thru infection, operating mistakes and staff giving the wrong prescriptions to people by mistake. Several recent articles on this.
Jimmy cooper
En-Route
Three mile island was human error that came very close to being a disaster!
Lachlan
En-Route
You didn't mention incorrect laboratory results as a contributing cause of death, though.
I am not allowed to make errors. All errors are tracked. I have watched numerous coworkers get terminated for errors. Not tolerated.
Lachlan
En-Route
Was that mine? I deleted it just in case it didn't come across as good-natured ribbing. I re-read it and thought better of it. Gotta wait til we've had at least one beer together before I can start full-on chops-busting.
BellyUpFish
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Backtothesand
Things I never said - "nuclear operators and engineers can't make mistakes."
Things I said - "I'm not allowed to perform at a level any lower than perfect."
I'm not allowed to make mistakes. Mistakes are not ok. Anything less than "excellence" is not allowed. Bring that to the table, you'll quickly find yourself out of a job.
"Performing at less than perfect isn't allowed where I work."
Can any operator or engineer make a mistake? Well, there is blood in all their veins, so, of course they can, and have and will again, but it's not the standard we are expected to live up to and that is what I said.
BellyUpFish
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Backtothesand
Well, *I* couldn't start over. Someone else might be able to in an area far, far away..
Dr. O
Pattern Altitude
As a working physician for years, chairman of the infection committee, chief of medicine, chairman of the disciplinary committee, yadda yadda, I wore a lot of hats over the decades and I know a bit about hospital "errors"
Do they happen?
Yes.
Are we killing 100,000 people a year in the hospital due to errors?
No frickin way.
Every death in the hospital goes for mortality review by the executive committee - and we take it personally.
But more than that, every death in the hospital gets referred to 1-800-call-scumbag and he has tens of millions of reasons to take it personally
If the claim that we are killing 100,000 people a year who would have survived outside of the hospital had even a sliver of truth the courts would have melted down and the congress would have frozen all payments to hospitals
Now the issue of 'errors' leading to death. As chairman I read those reports, carefully. They are ludicrous in 99% of the cases they cite.
Patient PD, 82 years old, alcoholic, multiple heart attacks in past, known kidney disease, is admitted with multi-organ disease and near terminal. Included in the routine orders is a sleeping pill and tylenol. Patient is comatose and goes on to die in septic shock. The national organization that is chasing this rabbit has an agenda. They comb the chart, discover that no sleeping pill or tylenol was administered "as ordered" so that is a medical error.
Their verdict - Death complicated by Medical Error. Add one more to the hundred thousand.
I saw one report at our hospital where a morning tablet of Vitamin B12 was not given to the patient on the morning of discharge because the patient insisted on leaving before breakfast was served because her husband needed to get to work (yes, it was technically an error)
The hospital was cited for that medication error. (palm smack)
Do they happen?
Yes.
Are we killing 100,000 people a year in the hospital due to errors?
No frickin way.
Every death in the hospital goes for mortality review by the executive committee - and we take it personally.
But more than that, every death in the hospital gets referred to 1-800-call-scumbag and he has tens of millions of reasons to take it personally
If the claim that we are killing 100,000 people a year who would have survived outside of the hospital had even a sliver of truth the courts would have melted down and the congress would have frozen all payments to hospitals
Now the issue of 'errors' leading to death. As chairman I read those reports, carefully. They are ludicrous in 99% of the cases they cite.
Patient PD, 82 years old, alcoholic, multiple heart attacks in past, known kidney disease, is admitted with multi-organ disease and near terminal. Included in the routine orders is a sleeping pill and tylenol. Patient is comatose and goes on to die in septic shock. The national organization that is chasing this rabbit has an agenda. They comb the chart, discover that no sleeping pill or tylenol was administered "as ordered" so that is a medical error.
Their verdict - Death complicated by Medical Error. Add one more to the hundred thousand.
I saw one report at our hospital where a morning tablet of Vitamin B12 was not given to the patient on the morning of discharge because the patient insisted on leaving before breakfast was served because her husband needed to get to work (yes, it was technically an error)
The hospital was cited for that medication error. (palm smack)
Lachlan
En-Route
Thanks, Dr. O. The clinical laboratory where I work is exceedingly intolerant of errors. My wife works elsewhere in the hospital and says the same thing about her department (surgical.) Errors are rare, and committing them is not part of learning how to be a better provider, as was the original question here in Post #1.
I don't know how common hospital errors are, but I'm hopeful they're not common as 100,000 a year. As someone who nearly died from a simple surgery gone wrong and having seen first hand blatant mistakes that a first year resident wouldn't make, I hope it is rare. I do know the surgical group who made the many mistakes learned from my case (no I didn't sue), so at least experience was gained.