How to Survive a Stay in the Hospital Without Getting Killed

By Mary Lorrie Davis

How to Survive a Stay in the Hospital Without Getting Killed is an easy-to-understand hospital-survival guide. This handbook explains what kinds of mistakes can and do happen in the hospital and how to prevent them from happening to you. It contains inside information and secrets as told by a nurse who has worked in various hospitals and healthcare facilities in different nursing departments, in two different states, and has "been there and done that." This book will teach you how to protect yourself, from the time you arrive at the Hospital Admissions Office to the time you leave the hospital. The subjects covered include what personal information you'll be asked to provide the hospital, what a routine day in the hospital is like, the importance of not assuming anything, how to prevent being mistaken for another patient, how to talk to the doctor(s) and other healthcare workers, how to prevent medication errors, how to protect yourself from surgical mistakes, and much more. The book also contains an Index, a Glossary of Medical Terms, a Bibliography, and a list of Useful Organizations that can help you with specific problems. This street-smart guide will be useful to patients, would-be patients, and anyone with family, friends or acquaintances they want to protect from medical mistakes or errors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jan 3, 2002
• ISBN: 9781412243889

Mary Lorrie Davis

A native New Yorker, Mary Lorrie Davis has been a Licensed Vocational Nurse for 20 years. She has practiced in New York and California in many hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes/facilities. She has been in charge, or supervised, or done bedside care in almost all services. Ms. Davis has also worked as a performer in New York, and appeared in the Broadway productions of Hair and Bubbling Brown Sugar, among other shows. In 1973, she wrote Letting Down My Hair, about her experiences in the "tribal love rock musical," which was published by Arthur Fields Books. The book is due to be reissued in 2002. Contact Ms. Davis via email at [e-mail]

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© Copyright 2001 Mary Lorrie Davis. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Editor: Julia Smath-LeFebvre. [e-mail]

Book Title design: Mary Lorrie Davis

Cover Illustration: Jim Smath

Book design, typesetting: Roy Diment

Vivencia Resources Group. www.inetex.com/vivencia

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

Davis, Mary Lorrie.

      How to survive a stay in the hospital without getting killed.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-55212-832-6

      1. Hospital patients. 2. Hospital care. I. Title.

RA965.6.D39 2001 362.1’1 C2001-911013-8

First Edition

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

STATEMENT FROM THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

♦ 1 ♦ 

 HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS

♦ 2 ♦ 

 PATIENTS’ BILL OF RIGHTS

♦ 3 ♦ 

 PATIENTS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

-4- 

 WHO’S WHO

♦ 5 ♦ 

 A DAY IN THE HOSPITAL

♦ 6 ♦ 

 The Name Game

♦ 7 ♦ 

 ASSUMPTIONS

♦ 8 ♦ 

 Doctors

♦ 9 ♦ 

 Medications

♦ 10 ♦ 

 Surgery

♦ 11 ♦ 

 INFECTIONS

♦ 12 ♦ 

 Death

♦ 13 ♦ 

 For the Patient and the Visitors

Bibliography

Useful Organizations

Glossary of Medical Terms

To the Memory of

My nephew and friend, Robert John Davis, who gave me the inspiration to finish this book.

My patient, Tony Barzaga, the beautiful, gentle little boy who will always occupy a special place in my heart.

My mother, Vesta Harrington-Davis, who taught me that where there’s a will, there’s a way.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special Thanks to:

All the healthcare providers and patients who gave me information for this book. At their request, their names shall remain anonymous.

My niece, Norma Jean Alexander, my brother, Johnny A. Davis, and my friends, Susan Booker, Didier C. Deutsch, Chet Dowling, Victor Petryakov, and Elizabeth Schwartz for their faith, help, and support.

My friend, Serena McDonough, for sharing her computer knowledge with me and never losing faith in the project.

My long-time friend, Julia Smath-LeFebvre, who took on the task of editing this book because we are friends. And to her wonderful husband, Roger LeFebvre, whose inspiration and enthusiasm will never be forgotten.

All of these people had their own trials and tribulations to deal with. Yet, they found the time, and cared enough about me to help me with this project. For that I will be forever grateful. Everyone needs people like these in their lives. I know how blessed I am to have them in mine.

STATEMENT FROM THE AUTHOR

The information in this book is based on my 20 years’ experience as a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN). I have worked in hospitals and other healthcare facilities as a staff member, and through Nurses’ Registries/Agencies, in two different states (New York and California). I’ve worked in every nursing unit except the emergency room and the operating room.

How to Survive a Stay in the Hospital Without Getting Killed is not intended to be an indictment of the healthcare workers or the facilities. Most of us are hard-working, concerned, honest and knowledgeable people. We care. That’s why we’re there. Think about it. It’s not the cleanest, best-paying job in the world. I believe it takes special people to be healthcare providers. But even special people make mistakes.

INTRODUCTION

In the last 20 years, technological advances and discoveries in the medical field have made the ability to diagnose and treat patients 100% better. Unfortunately, I’ve seen the quality of patient care get sloppier, more careless, thoughtless, cold and heartless as the years go by. These mistakes, accidents, incidents, misfortunes, or errors can range anywhere from giving a patient the wrong diet tray to doing the wrong operation on the wrong patient, to sending a live patient to the morgue. Giving a patient the wrong diet tray may sound harmless, unless you’re dealing with a patient for whom the doctor ordered NPO (nothing by mouth), or who’s scheduled for surgery, or is a diabetic.

From June 1997 to December 1998, 3,000 medical mistakes and mishaps occurred at veterans’ hospitals around the country, and more than 700 patients died in those cases, as reported by the Department of Veterans Affairs, in the New York Times.

In November 1999, the Washington Post reported that as many as 98,000 Americans die unnecessarily every year from medical mistakes made by physicians, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals… and that medical errors may be the fifth leading cause of death, behind heart disease, cancer, stroke, and obstructive lung disease.

Yes, the news media is constantly featuring stories of medical mishaps. I believe these stories are just a drop in the bucket. In the 20 years that

Reviews for How to Survive a Stay in the Hospital Without Getting Killed

[Cassandra Gunther · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

She had an unrealistic trust of doctors. Nurses know the patients much more and are the patient advocates.