Hello, everybodddie!
Posted on 07/20/2009 9:08:36 AM PDT by rawhide
A Texas Airman stationed at an Air Force Base near Sacramento, Calif. has lost both legs after surgeons reportedly botched a routine surgery to remove his gallbladder.
Colton Read, 20, underwent laproscopic surgery last week at David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento. Laproscopic surgery is a minimally invasive procedure that involves making a tiny incision to minimize pain and speed recovery time.
About an hour into the surgery, something went wrong. Read's wife Jessica told CBS11TV.com.
"A nurse runs out, 'we need blood now' and she rounds the corner and my gut feelings is 'oh my God, is that my husband?'" Jessica Read said. Read's wife said an Air Force general surgeon mistakenly cut her husband's aortic valve, which supplies blood to the heart, but waited hours to transport Colton Read to a state hospital with a vascular surgeon.
Read, who is still in intensive care, lost both legs as a result of the blood loss. Meanwhile, his gallbladder still has not been removed. Jessica Read said the doctor admitted his mistake, but under federal law the Reads cannot sue.
Jessica Read told FOX 40 she is appalled that the Air Force is even considering medical retirement or medical discharge while Airman Read is incapable of making any type of decision. She said he is not 100 percent lucid and is still heavily medicated.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
If you are thinking of military medicine 25 to 40 years ago you are completely off the mark. I entered the military in 1969 and retired about 16 years ago. I have experienced very few problems and I and my family received very good care wherever we were stationed.
As a retiree I am very satisfied with the care I and my family receive and if I had to move to an obama plan it would be a disaster.
There are good and bad doctors and other care staff regardless of civilian or military status. At our local base hospital many of the doctors are contracted from the local university medical center because so many doctors are deployed.
One other thing. The comment about the low expectations from “free” medical care is ignorant. I and my family and others sacrificed a lot including comparable pay over the years of service and the medical coverage is earned, every bit of it.
Hello, everybodddie!
I did not make any remarks about “free” ...it is earned I agree for the military.
Then vs. now ...now. There was a time ago when it was better and it may be better in locations and with different docs ... I give that benefit of doubt but my experience was not good.
Sadly, these are Governemnt Doctors at the Air Force Base, right??
Indeed!
“Standard Govt.-run military medicine...likely a young, inexperienced doctor with a scalpel in hand...good chance an affirmative action type...welcome to Comrade Obama’s vision for everyone (except, of course, elitist scum such as himself).”
Probably some newly minted “butter bar” who graduated in the bottom 10% of med school.
December 18, 1998. What did you get for Christmas? A Laporosopic Cholecystectomy.
How come no one talked about his blood loss? THAT, to me, was the problem. Why didn’t he get blood? That’s what didn’t make sense to me.
*shrug* In my case, add watching the paramedics work on you from somewhere near the ceiling...
Saw this. Thought of you...
True story:
Undergoing a livery biopsy, the doc was going to take a huge needle and core a few samples.
The nurse (Korean female), nice person, attentive and able, she gets this local anesthetic stuff that the doc is supposed to stick me with, first, to deaden the surface pain as the horse-needle jabs through my skin and into my liver.
She preps the stuff and leaves the small bottle of anesthetic on the tray, next to the small needle that would be used to administer the anesthetic.
Doc comes in, a paki islamic male doc (Mohammad Al SXXXXXXX), and he chats a little (can hardly understand him), and then he picks up the unopened bottle, breaks the seal and fills the needle with the pure anesthetic.
When he turns around and starts to make a motion towards me, the nurse says, “Excuse me Doctor, but may I have a moment.”
They turn and soon a animated hushed discussion takes place. Eventually, he turns around and tells me “not my fault,” that the anesthetic solution was not diluted like it should have been, “not my fault” that he was about to inject me with the full solution that would have seriously hurt me if not killed me, “not my fault” if he had stuck me with the needle AFTER the nurse told him of his error (he didn't stick me, not because of his recognized error, but that the nurse threatened to get security if he went ahead and tried). That part really pissed him off. You see, according to muslim male docs, they can't make a mistake, it's always somebody else's mistake.
I get this because I am listening very carefully as he is hard to understand.
So, here the doc was, ready to stick me when he was told about the solution error he made, and would have done so even after being told about his error.
I said, “I'm outta here,” and left. Went to my medical plan on-line, found a W/M doc with a typical American name, and had the procedure done correctly. Why? because I know the W/M made it on his merits and was not some diversity hire or some hokey foreign trained quack, and besides, women all the time select women docs and no one bats an eye.
My life, my choice on who to see.
Ah. . .wrong-o.
Docs come in as Captains, not “butter bars.”
Bi-locate, much?
“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.” —P J O’Rourke
Not much.
Yeah, me too
It would have been like having lown out tire, you couldn’t fill it as fast as it emptied; the only to save him was to clamp the aorta, shutting off blood to his lower members.
They must mean the abdominal aorta? Trocar is inserted in the abdomen —> hits abdominal aorta —> hemorrhage?
There is NO way this injury involved the aortic valve - probably just sloppy journalism.
If you know something about the subject being written about, you almost cannot find an article where they haven’t gotten some key detail wrong!
Ping
They may as well said they cut a carotid, or temporal artery...
It would have made about as much sense.
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