transplant girl just died :(
 

i hope those doctors or whoever never sleep another nite after that screw up

what the 411 on this? i dont remember seeing anything about this? who? what? where?

All people make mistakes. Doctors are people.

cnn says shes brain dead, family is considering pulling the plug... but someone just told me that they had made the decision...

http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/02/22...ror/index.html

true, but youd think there would be some checks & balances in something so delicate...

i read somewhere that over 50k people a year die due to medical mistakes, and thats just the ones they catch & account for...

"The hospital has acknowledged that her surgeon, Dr. James Jaggers, errored in not checking the blood type before performing the first transplant, according to The Associated Press. "

wtf.

very sad case, should have been avoided...but how many people are saved every year? Whenever humans are involved there will be mistakes. We just have to pray our loved ones aren't the ones the mistakes are made on and do our best to make sure they don't happen again.

It's a pretty sad story. It is amazing that they can extract vital organs like the heart and lungs and transplant them successfully as often as they can.

this is true. i suppose there is a margin of error, just like with anything in life. just sad that it happened by such a mistake, to such a young kid.

Agreed.

DH

So this excuses him from fuckin up? His mistake cost a child her LIFE.

It is my firm hope that this man sees her face in his dreams, hears her voice whispering to him in his nightmares, and never operates on another patient the rest of his life. Let him live with the realization that he killed a child who trusted him to give her a new life.:feels-hot

Just very sad for her to have to pass at all at such a young age, at the same time, she will no longer be in pain.

how the hell do you not check the bloodtype. even i would know and remember to do that.

Since the family are non-residents, it will be interesting to see what the legal outcome of this is.

Regardless, this is a sad story. I feel for the family.

Doctors are people and make mistakes just like the rest of us. Granted, some of those mistakes cost lives, but that's a risk we take, and I'm sure her family will be very well off from the multi-million lawsuit I'm sure they will file. I'm sad for the girl and her family, and just as sad for the person who could have benefitted from the first (wrong) set of heart/lungs.

i am sure he will be held to account for his error. However, unless this is a constant pattern of his then there are also parents out there with a child whose life he saved. I am sure he can think of little else right now.

How many lives has he saved? Look at the big picture. Shit happens and unfortunately it happened to a little girl this time.

Should we drag the doctor into the center of town and stone him to death? Or should we examine the situation and find out where the system broke down so we can take steps to prevent this very preventable thing from happening again.

yikes! i had to stop reading that. i have been having a great day and i feel really bad for that family. jeez :(

Doctors make a LOT of mistakes, and unlike the mistakes that you and I make, those mistakes KILL people. A LOT of people - tens of thousands per year die in this country due to medical mistakes. Basic stuff like checking blood types is an inexcusable fuckup.

not sure if you or i would know to do this or not, but i would assume that a doctor who *specializes* in fucking transplants would bother to check, yes? very sad, i hope his career is ruined, these guys have a responsibility to care for people properly, they get paid well enough to compensate for the stress in their lives..

Yeah.. 123414234 other people fucked up by not checking too. The surgeon is the last stop-gap.

When you're thinking about all the intricacies of such an operation, I'm sure you'll forget the super minor details that 15 other people were supposed to take care of too.

People like tala are what make this country suck ass. Yes, lets sue because some doctor made a mistake, after saving probably hundreds of lives. I'm sure the heartbreak and guilt is real easy to deal with as well.

Fuck that. Everyone makes mistakes, and if you nail someone to the wall for everything like this, then you'll stop having doctors to care for you.

Ugh.

-Phil

are you retarded? do you think doctors are infallible? superhuman? perfect?

christ... a doctor is just the same as me and you, except he went to school and studied to be a doctor instead of studying to be a lawyer or computer technician or mechanic.

he made a mistake and yes, someone died, but there are many jobs where a mistake can cost lives. you can't imagine how many jobs out there can cost someone their life if a mistake is made.

do you think a bus driver is any different from a doctor? a bus driver fucks up and he can kill 40-60 people.

think before you speak.

That's a damn shame.

You think this doctor will ever fuckup like this again? I doubt it!

Will it happen again? I bet it will.

If the doctor stops practicing, I'm sure it will be because of his choice and not anyone else's. The family will sue the doctor and the hostpital, but I'm sure the family had to sign some crazy contracts which informed them COMPLETELY of the risks.

The girl was going to die without the transplant anyway! They knew the risks and tragically it didn't work very well.

I'm sure the doctor will save hundreds of more children in his lifetime. I'm sure the many children that have died in his care weigh heavily on his conscience.

It's all part of being a surgeon!

mistakes happen, especially in very advanced procedures. the key is to learn from those mistakes and take the necessary steps to avoid them in the future.

i haven't followed this case, but is it up to the surgeon to make sure its the right organ for that person? isn't that suppose to be taken care of before going into the operating room?

I agree with people that say that doctors are human and they can make mistake.

But the neophyte blood type error is not excusable is this case.

The girl would have died without medical intervention.
Medical intervention happened, and she died anyways because someone fucked up.

It's not any sadder than 96 people dying because someone fucked up and used fireworks.

It's not any sadder than 21 people dying because a club owner decided to go against a court order to keep part of his club shut down.

Thanks, it's nice to know that I'm the kind of person that makes this country suck. I did NOT mention suing that doctor, now did I? Get off it.

Certainly he saved many lives, I never said he didn't. What I DID say was that he was the final stopgap, and part of the procedure was to check and cross match the blood type. He did not. By not doing something so simple and routine, he cost that child her life, so yeeah, I hope like hell it haunts him.:321GFY

And I'm apparently not the only one who thinks this way.

And I hope every error you ever made haunts you just as badly. Tenfold in fact.

I'm sure he will. Are you happy now?

I don't know the whole story. However, I'm sure the procedure had time restraints and was rushed. When rushed, you fuck up.

Lost lives due to medical fuck-ups are very unfortunate and sad. But overall, I'm very thankful for modern medicine. Aren't you?

I'm almost positive it wasn't the doctors fault - they had 3 doctors verify the organs. I think it was a clerical error on entering what type of blood the girl had into the donor database.

its not like they are smiling and saying 'oh boy I made a mistake that killed a child, yippie!' I am sure they feel horrid.

Nothing like facts to break up a good old fashioned piss fest with bad information.

Let's not forget that this girl was an illegal immigrant that came here ONLY to get the transplant. At least TWO legal immigrants and/or Americans died (16 people die every day while waiting for a transplant) while she received two transplants and now the legal immigrants and/or Americans medical and insurance system will be made to pay when her illegal immigrant family sues for the millions they have already said they are suing for.

Yes, it's a horrible thing when someone dies, but IMHO, she shouldn't have been eligible to receive the first transplant.

They also refused to allow her usable organs to be donated.

Bottom line is that hospitals make mistake, a lot more than most people realize. When one of my twin daughters was 1 month old I knew something was wrong with her as she was not growing the same as her twin. Even though they are not identical, I could tell there was a problem. After 2 months and a dozen doctors, a general practitioner found a heart murmer after tons of specialists said she was fine. Two days later she had open heart surgery. I walked into the recovery/ICU unit, pulled back the blanket that was on her to find a huge pool of blood that had leaked out of her arm where the needle was in. She had lost a lot of blood, and at only 7 lbs she could have been dead in a matter of minutes if I had not discovered this. None of their monitoring machines had even detected this. After she was stabilized I had a little chat with the ICU manager, letting her know in exact detail who I would call if something like this happened again. Needless to say the people in ICU watched her 24/7 after this incident. I guess the moral is not to take what any doctor says as fact if your gut tells you otherwise. Trust but VERIFY VERIFY and then VERIFY again.

yeah of course and do that for your own body too. I was brought up to ask what every needle going into me was. It didn't matter if I understood but that I should know and that it would make the nurse/doctor think about it before they stuck it in my arm.

It really helped me when I was 15 and had to go into the hospital when I was on an out of state trip with my father. My appendix was on the verge of bursting. One of the nights after the surgery I woke up to find a nurse ready to put a needle in my arm. I hadn't had any shots before (only a drip) and I asked her what it was. She said it was my regular shot. I of course told her I didn't have a regular shot. She checked my name again and it turned out the shot was for the girl shairing my room who had a whole boat load of problems. I don't know what it was but I know I am glad I woke up to stop her putting it in me.

So, yeah things happen but there is NO harm in questioning.

Scary story Choker.. How are your daughters doing today?

All doctors make mistake, I agree but why wait 10 days after the false organs to tell the parents of the wrong organs. If the doctors would of tell the parents of the wrong blood type organs the same day, their would be a big chance Jesica would be alive today. Doctors must pay for this error & I hope they get sued big time.....

False organs? WTF?

Anyways, the doctor let the parents know almost as soon as he knew. However, it took 10 days to find new organs. It's not like they're a dime a dozen, you know.

This case is a right wing wet dream. You've got ungrateful illegal immigrants stealing vital organs from hard-working Americans, you're going to have mean nasty trial lawyers going to rip off the hospital because the poor hard-working do-gooder doctor made an itty-bitty error ...

And I'm sure the people jumping to the doctor's defense would be just as understanding of "shit happens" if it happened to one of their friends or loved ones ... yeah, right.

Some doctor fucked up my cousin about 7 years ago. She's fucked up for life.

Shit happens.

And on the same note, her leukemia has now been destroyed.

Shit happens.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the second set of organs were specifically donated by the parents who just lost their daughter.

I wonder how they feel about this?

I'm one of the "shit happens" people.
My grandfather passed away after a failed liver transplant. And yes, it hurt, and yes, it sucked. But shit happens.

My grandfather would have died anyways. They tried to prolong his life, but were unsuccessful. Same thing with this girl.

Where are all the Jesus freaks?

No one has brought up this train of thought yet:

Everyone has their time to go. This was her time.

I haven't followed this story, but I would expect the surgeon would have expected the blood type to be checked numerous times by numerous people prior to the surgery.. I would have thought it impossible to make that error because organs and donor are matched using the tissue type and blood group.. In hospitals however there is a hierarchy and ultimately the surgeon is responsible. If there was a clerical error in regard to the entry of donor blood group then it seems mitigating enough to absolve the surgeon.

Nonetheless medical errors happen so often in hospitals it is unbelievable, (and i think unacceptable). Often these are system failures like this one, things like as mis-reading prescriptions happens a lot, and inappropriate prescribing are two very common other ones. Sure people make mistakes but there is an obligation to try and reduce mistakes and implement systems to eliminate them where possible, this happens too infrequently. Often because hospitals don't have the cash or are too short sighted to see that short term costs lead to long term savings.

Transplant surgery is quite interesting too.. It's damned expensive and since health resources are limited (unless you're insured) then it can be quite hard to justify. It could be argued that this money could be spent to provide a greater good to a greater number of people in other areas.. Thing is transplant surgery is cutting edge and 'cool' so surgeons like to do it.