Skeletons in the Medical Closet: a Personal Story and a Professional Report

In conceiving and preparing this book it has been my intent to address several targeted audiences with information about the Skeletons in the Medical Closet, such as medical errors, medical negligence, hospital mistakes, adverse events. The information to be shared will be focused on these 'bad things' which can happen to a patient during their process of receiving medical and hospital care, and on the doctors and hospitals who and which are the potential perpetrators and setting for these 'bad things,' and on the persons or agents or agencies who and which serve as 'watchdogs' over doctors and hospitals. In conveying this information I will do so through two conduits, namely, a personal story and a professional report. The personal story which I will recount will be about my wife's unanticipated death due to several 'bad things' which occurred to her during her hospitalization. In telling this story I do not do so because of the unusual nature of the bad things which happened to her or because of the specialness of the persons in the story. Rather, I do so because this story can serve as an illustration of the information to be shared in the professional report and does reflect the many untold stories of persons and families who also hurt as a consequence of the sad outcome of medical and hospital care. The professional report to be given will be based on documented information about these Skeletons In The Medical Closet, the reasons for such skeletons, the doctors and hospitals and their 'watchdogs' and the lessons to be learned. This report will be rendered not because of the 'newness' of the revelations but rather because of the need to bring the skeletons out of the medical closet where they have been hidden by a conspiracy of silence. The first of the two intended target audiences which I hope to address through this book will be the several different categories of lay persons who potentially can become a casualty of their medical and hospital care. I am, for one, r