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Step 1
Before surgery sign the operative consent after you have satisfied
yourself that the doctors are alert. The number of hours of sleep does not guarantee alertness, so decide for yourself. Doctors in training are not at liberty to address this issue for political reasons
in their hospitals, so protect yourelf and protect the doctors by insisting on speaking both to the attending surgeon
and to the resident surgeon. If word gets around that patients exercise their legal power, medicine will
be better for everyone. We are all patients. Lawyers permit 80 hours/week to be legal for only a fraction
of the population, and forget that lawyers, like the rest of us, become patients...
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Step 2
Under DARLING
our local hospital board of trustees is responsible for what happens in our hospital. The trustees are liable if there
are not enough technicians or nurses, so hold the trustees accountable by comparing hospitals. Remember,
as patients we have a choice of hospitals.
Click here to see how well YOUR hospital trustees spend YOUR Medicare tax money...
Darling vs. Charleston Community Memorial Hospital. Click here.
Similarly, the trustees can require due process in peer review, so trust only trustees who require
due process in peer review so your doctors are not gagged when they see something less than safe in YOUR hospital.
Even non-profit hospitals make a profit. Never trust
hospitals which defame doctors by calling them "disruptive" when they place YOUR safety ahead of HOSPITAL-profit.
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Step 3
Compare hospitals.
Check web sites to see which hospitals have by-laws protecting
doctors who protect patients. Avoid hospitals without due process in peer review. We will start such a comparison
here later.
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