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COPYRIGHT 2004 International Medical News Group
Dr. Robert M. Wachter transported a teenager to a pediatric intensive care unit in an ambulance without a cardiac monitor or a defibrillator. No one--not Dr. Wachter, the nurse, or the emergency room clerk who called in the transport request--had thought to specify a full-service "priority one" ambulance for the 10-mile trip.
Dr. Kaveh G. Shojania sent a 29-year old man home from the emergency room with a prescription for codeine and a diagnosis of "rib trauma and gastritis" following a slip in the shower. Two days later, the patient was back in the hospital for an emergency cardiac catheterization. Dr. Shojania had missed a major heart attack.
"Our instinct at the time, like all doctors, was to blame ourselves after we screwed up," said Dr. Wachter, chief of the medical service at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center. To day, the two physicians are taking a...
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