By Barbara Ficarra, RN, BSN, MPA This post isn’t being written to frighten you or to cause you to mistrust hospitals. It’s to make you aware that medical errors do occur, but there are steps that you can take to help prevent medical errors from happening. First, some vital information According to a recent investigation by the Hearst Corporation, a staggering 200,000 Americans will die each year from preventable medical errors and hospital infections. This…
Read More...Is Big Business Responsible for the Nursing Shortage? Fred Pescatore, MD Thinks So
I sat down with Fred Pescatore, M.D., NY Times Best Selling Author and Practicing Family Physician in New York City to talk about the nursing shortage and the health care system. “The health care system doesn’t respect and protect nurses,” says Dr. Pescatore. Additionally, the whole problem with medicine, says Dr. Fred Pecatore is that, We’ve allowed big business to take over medicine, so when big business takes over medicine people don’t matter, and medicine…
Read More...How to Avoid Chaos in the Hospital and Get the Care You Need
A Registered Nurse’s Tips to Stay Safe in a Hospital By Barbara Ficarra, RN, BSN, MPA A hospital can be extremely frightening and overwhelming. Hospitals generally are loud, cold, and sterile mazes of chaos. Unfortunately medical errors happen and it’s estimated that nearly 100,000 people die of medical errors each year. According to the CDC, “In American hospitals alone, healthcare-associated infections account for an estimated 1.7 million infections and 99,000 associated deaths each year.” As…
Read More...How to Question Doctors and Nurses — Without “Challenging” Them
By Barbara Ficarra I think there is a huge difference between challenging a doctor or nurse and simply questioning a doctor or nurse. In yesterday’s The Wall Street Journal, in an article titled “Finding a Way To Ask Doctors Tough Questions,” Laura Landro writes: “Despite efforts by advocacy groups and others to empower patients, challenging a doctor or nurse on whether they are correctly doing their jobs remain downright intimidating. Signs and posters in hospitals…
Read More...Real Simple Magazine Taps Experts for Emergency Care Advice
Preparing for Life’s Mishaps by Barbara Ficarra, RN, BSN, MPA Having this card in your wallet could save your life in an ER When Real Simple Magazine reporter contacted me for a story on emergency rooms, I was delighted to help out. I think it’s important for readers to have the perspective from a nurse on the front line of the ER as well as ER doctors. The March edition of Real Simple is on…
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