Lo-tech identity theft

Here's a tip for you: always verify which surgical procedure is being performed on you before the surgery gets underway.

Is it a backhanded insult when you wake up from your hernia surgery only to find that you've undergone liposuction instead? Or should you just laugh and chalk it up to coincidence since that liposuction was meant for another patient with the same name?

I'm thinking that maybe, oh, I don't know, actually reading the patient's medical charts instead of just asking their name might have gone a long way to preventing this.

Posted by Dan on March 03, 2003 at 02:23 PM | TrackBack