Full Table of Contents
_______________
Abbreviated
Table of Contents
Home Page
Patient Safety
Silence vs
Safety
Silenced
White wall
of Silence
Silencing
Conflict Of
Interest
Psychology of
Providers
Subjectivity
Blacklisting
Nurse survey
Loyalty
Mobbing and
bullying
Trust Us
Defensive
documenting
Report Rate
Risk
managemnt
SOAP
Management
Hospitals
Crime in
medicine
Sexual Abuse
Liability
Limitations
Free Speech
for Patients
Exploitation
OSMB Medical
Boards
Mammography
solutions
Medical errors
Medical Complaints
One number
Links
Injured patients who want to help and be heard, click here.
Thomas Jefferson said that given the choice between government without newspapers and newspapers without government, he would choose newspapers.
In medicine we have government without newspapers. Patients cannot find out what they need to know to make informed choices. No one in medicine records or reports the information patients need to know the most. So patients will have to do it.
A Symbol for Patient Safety
Click here for stencils and instructions for putting the symbol on sidewalks
It is a chalk outline. It is easy to recognize because it looks like
someone shot John Travolta. Or like someone shouting for help, or mercy.
The right hand is raised and pointed. The left is lowered and spread. It has a
waist like someone physically fit. It was a vibrant, healthy, foot-tapping person until he/she sought
medical care.
Click it for a larger printable version.
When you see it, think about about the almost two hundred thousand patients who unnecessarily are killed and the many more who are injured unnecessarily each year in medicine, some of them intentionally killed or injured or abused by medical professionals - sometimes out of anger or lust or perversion. Consider that other medical professionals almost never report this and will not testify about it (I'm not speaking about hired guns for court, but about witnesses and colleagues on the scene). Consider that there are medical boards and guilds to protect them, but no group to protect you (state medical boards are run by M.Ds, not injured patients). And that medical professionals can warn each other about you, but you cannot warn each other about them without being sued for more money than you ever will have, or even be put in jail in some states.
4.1% of sentinel events in medicine are
assault/rape/homicide according to JCAHO
More than three times as many Americans die unnecessarily in healthcare each year than died in the entire 30 years of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. Perhaps as a monument to them a couple hundred thousand blue-chalk-symbols should be placed on routes leading to state capitol buildings where liability limitations are enacted that protect even doctors who commit violent crimes in the course of their practice but leave their patient-victims with no limits on the liability they incur merely for speaking about what was done to them.
Legalities
I drew the chalk outline. I am not copyrighting it. You are free to use it to bring attention to patient safety in any way you want. If possible use light blue chalk in straight lines. The angularity not only makes it distinguishable from whales and porpoises, but also indicates that something terrible happened to this patient who was soft and round a short time ago.
If someone tells you that you cannot draw a chalk outline on a public sidewalk to speak about patient safety, inform them that in the USA this is free expression and as such is protected by the first amendment (as long as it is chalk or something equally temporary). Issues similar to this have won in the Supreme Court of the United States in the recent past. It is protected speech and you have a right to do it even though they can make it costly to defend.
Their egos and reputations are not worth more than our lives.
Be careful about identifying specific
persons or institutions or they may sue you. Drawing it on
a public sidewalk in front of one hospital where you had a problem could cause
you another problem. Drawing it in front of
ten should be safe.
Unfortunately, not being able to identify where problems occurr reduces the public debate to unfounded generalities that cannot be verified or studied in detail. It's as though people going to restaurants were not allowed to tell anyone where they got food poisoning. If a lecher in a hospital intentionally harms you, you are not allowed to warn other patients about the predator. But you can put a symbol on your car or your web site or on a sidewalk.
See Freedom of Speech for Patients
A possible sign for carrying in a march can be seen here.
Please don't use spray paint or anything permanent on a sidewalk or other public place. If it is permanent, it is graffiti and is more likely to alienate than to persuade (and might be illegal). Christo left his mammoth exhibit of 7,500 Gates in Central Park in Manhattan for less than three weeks because it is special and poignant if it is rare and of short duration. Chalk outlines still on the ground after 3 months may work against us. It is important not to be obnoxious to our own constituency.