Waking Up Blind Lawsuits Over Eye Surgery

Includes bibliographical references (p. 228-230).

Imagine trusting a doctor - with the best reputation for treating eye disease in the state - to do surgery on your eyes. Now imagine the worst outcomes. Blindness in an eye that you learn, in fact, never needed surgery. And the medical center where you were treated is ignoring the problem. This is the story of how an eye surgeon - respected, admired, and lauded with the highest praise - became the cause of an array of medial problems for his patients. It is also the story of how one of the nation's premier medical centers tried to conceal the growing scandal. The faculty who exposed the problems were punished. Official committees and the university leaders minimized the misconduct. Slowly, lawsuits and publicity brought some to light in bits and pieces. Now the whole story is being told. With the use of court documents, transcripts of tape-recorded conversations, interviews, and personal observation, Dr. Tom Harbin presents this case from the very beginning, uncovering all levels of wrongdoing and secrecy. Walking Up Blind will shock the reader with its candid exploration of the dark side of medicine

In this book, Dr. Tom Harbin outlines the many reasons medical professionals should pay more attention to those forgotten principles.

Reflections of a Pupil weaves together the rich tapestry of lessons that Dr. R. Rishi Gupta has learned from his unique journey through the art and science of medicine. Readers will discover how to juggle the surgical, clinical, practical, and interpersonal demands of their specialties-while still maintaining a positive work-life balance.

The extraordinary chronicle of two doctors “bringing light to those in darkness” (Time)—the “miracle workers” whose story is featured on 60 Minutes The publisher will donate a portion of its proceeds on the sale of this book to the Himalayan Cataract Project. Second Suns is the unforgettable true story of two very different doctors with a common mission: to rid the world of preventable blindness. Dr. Geoffrey Tabin was the high-achieving “bad boy” of his class at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Sanduk Ruit grew up in a remote village in the Himalayas, where cataract blindness—easily curable in modern hospitals—amounts to an epidemic. Together, they pioneered a new surgical method, by which they have helped restore sight to over 4 million people—all for about $20 per operation. #1 New York Times–bestselling author David Oliver Relin brings the doctors’ work to vivid life through poignant portraits of their patients, from old men who can once again walk treacherous mountain trails, to children who can finally see their mothers’ faces. The Himalayan Cataract Project is changing the world—one pair of eyes at a time.

New York Times Bestseller “Every once in a while a book comes along that rocks the foundations of an established order that's seriously in need of being shaken. The modern American hospital is that establishment and Unaccountable is that book.”-Shannon Brownlee, author of Overtreated Dr. Marty Makary is co-developer of the life-saving checklist outlined in Atul Gawande's bestselling The Checklist Manifesto. As a busy surgeon who has worked in many of the best hospitals in the nation, he can testify to the amazing power of modern medicine to cure. But he's also been a witness to a medical culture that routinely leaves surgical sponges inside patients, amputates the wrong limbs, and overdoses children because of sloppy handwriting. Over the last ten years, neither error rates nor costs have come down, despite scientific progress and efforts to curb expenses. Why? To patients, the healthcare system is a black box. Doctors and hospitals are unaccountable, and the lack of transparency leaves both bad doctors and systemic flaws unchecked. Patients need to know more of what healthcare workers know, so they can make informed choices. Accountability in healthcare would expose dangerous doctors, reward good performance, and force positive change nationally, using the power of the free market. Unaccountable is a powerful, no-nonsense, non-partisan diagnosis for healing our hospitals and reforming our broken healthcare system.

Scores of talented and dedicated people serve the forensic science community, performing vitally important work. However, they are often constrained by lack of adequate resources, sound policies, and national support. It is clear that change and advancements, both systematic and scientific, are needed in a number of forensic science disciplines to ensure the reliability of work, establish enforceable standards, and promote best practices with consistent application. Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward provides a detailed plan for addressing these needs and suggests the creation of a new government entity, the National Institute of Forensic Science, to establish and enforce standards within the forensic science community. The benefits of improving and regulating the forensic science disciplines are clear: assisting law enforcement officials, enhancing homeland security, and reducing the risk of wrongful conviction and exoneration. Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States gives a full account of what is needed to advance the forensic science disciplines, including upgrading of systems and organizational structures, better training, widespread adoption of uniform and enforceable best practices, and mandatory certification and accreditation programs. While this book provides an essential call-to-action for congress and policy makers, it also serves as a vital tool for law enforcement agencies, criminal prosecutors and attorneys, and forensic science educators.

Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.