The date is July 17th, 2014. It is 10am in the Dirksen Senate building, and the congressional subcommittee on health and aging is about to focus on patient harm. The educating will be done by some of the leaders in the medical field, Ashish Jha and Tejal Gandhi from Harvard, Peter Pronovost from Johns Hopkins. The star of the proceedings is John James, a toxicologist, a PhD from Texas, and the founder of Patient Safety America.
The tone is set from the beginning by none other than Bernie Sanders. In somber tones, he relays that hospitals can make patients worse, and that a recent study suggests medical errors is America’s third leading cause of death behind only heart disease and cancer. Hospitals are killing patients, and something needs to be done about it. The panelists then go on to speak strongly about the ongoing epidemic of patients dying in hospitals, and re-enforce the staggering numbers introduced by Bernie Sanders.
Headlining the proceedings is an unassuming gentleman named John James. He has a Ph. D in pathology, and he worked as a Chief Toxicologist at NASA. He is at the congressional proceedings, and is one of the lead activists in patient safety because of personal tragedy. His 19 year old son died in the summer of 2002 due to “uninformed, careless, and unethical” care by cardiologists. He proceeded to write a book, “A Sea of Broken Hearts” that details the errors he believes cardiologists made in his son’s care that lead to his death. Of note 2 cardiologists that were sought by Dr. James’ lawyers believe the care his son got did not violate the standards of care. A further 2 appeals to the Texas Medical Board also rendered two opinions from two other separate cardiologists that the standards of care in this case were not only met, but exceeded. Dr. James, armed with information he has carefully selected from a number of different sources, strongly disagrees.
