Most Astonishing Health Disaster of the 20th Century

Each year I have been more saddened to hear from family members, friends, neighbors and acquaintances stories of medical mistakes and/or severe reactions to medications that sent them running to an Urgent Care Facility, their Doctor's Office or the Emergency Room.

I personally went into shock over a reaction to medication in June of 2005 and our local First Response Team luckily made it to me just in time. I was injected with a drug and rushed to the emergency room almost thirty miles away.

It was days before I felt anywhere near my normal self again.

There are things, though, that we can personally do to at least lessen the chance of medical mistakes for ourselves and our loved ones.

Without fail, anytime a medical person is giving you any kind of medication or shot, ask what it is, even though the Doctor probably told you already. From the time the Doctor tells you til the nurse walks into the exam room to administer the shot or pill, something could happen and it could be the wrong thing.

Anytime you take a prescription to the pharmacy, without fail, read the label on the bottle to verify that it is what you were told you were being prescribed.

Also check the pill against the physical description of the pill that is now being printed out on the label, or a sticker attached to the bottle. ie: white, oval, so many mgs with the coding letters/numbers.

Especially if you are actually an in-patient at the hospital unless injured too badly, or too ill to talk, double check everything that is about to be done to you by questioning.

If you are in a doctor's office or the hospital with a loved one or friend and they aren't able to speak for themselves, question, question, question each thing that is being done to verify that no mistakes are being made.

I simply cannot stress enough the importance of questions. Yes, we can have the utmost faith in our personal doctor and even feel very comfortable with other caregivers that administer any care needed...BUT....

...we are all human and we all do make mistakes.

Especially in Emergency Rooms where the Doctors and Nurses often work double shifts or extremely long hours, many oops occur!

We shouldn't live in fear of medical mistakes. We just need to get into a routine habit of always questioning, double checking for our sake and theirs.

Wishing you many many years of health, happiness and prosperity!

DJ

ALWAYS REMEMBER: There is no doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can catalyze a paradigm shift that changes the world!

For over 100 years conventional medicine has seized control of the US health care system and as a result we have over 800,000 people who are killed by interacting with this system. It is likely that over 50 million Americans have died prematurely from this abuse.