restorARTively

Seeing a life tagged with a price is acutely painful and personal experience for me. Especially a young life. Two days before our trial was to start, which was also a day before James' fourth birthday, my layer called with a settlement offer from the defense. He had forewarned many times the discussion of money and my son's life was inevitable. http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/01/31/india.fire/index.html?iref=topnews In India over the weekend, five newborns who were being treated for jaundice were burned to death in their incubators as a result of faulty electrical wiring. The news brief ends with the disclosure that the families of each of these deceased newborns will receive $2,000 in compensation. That equates to approximately $60,000 in the U.S. Average per capita income is about $24000 in the U.S. and $800 in India (Delaney). This is a tragic story that will give pause to the reader. But what does it mean? How does this relate to you? Does it even matter? Would y...

A down's syndrome man went into the Pennsylvania-based hospital as he had many times before over his sixty years for surgery to drain his shunt . Only this time, he was released with an untreated hospital acquired infection the day after his surgery. He has been refused further care from the providers that were a part of the stay that led to the HAI . He hasn't been able to work since. A 92 yo woman on Medicare was made to pay upfront the costs for cataract surgery. She didn't have the money to pay but she fortunately had family in the area whom helped put up the cash. A pediatric cardiac patient visits a hospital several times for care. This time she received the wrong dose of morphine for pain. She comes home with a strong heart but a damaged brain. Its been a long month. These are just a couple examples of what patients and family in Pennsylvania have been facing. While the month has been escaping me, each day I consider posting on the blog. However, the calls and ema...

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2009/01/babys_body_tossed_with_the_tra.html I had a long day and THEN received a call about this tragic case. I spent a good bit of the afternoon just feeling "tired from the fight". Every thing I do today is a result of the loss of James seven years ago from preventable medical error which was then quickly compounded by the infamous "wall of silence". I am fully invested in a graduate degree called "Restorative Practice". No, it has nothing to do with Dentistry. It has everything to do with caring for the relationships we build, maintain, and even lose. If you have read anything about me and my presence in the national healthcare safety discussion, you know that I am very eager to find some kind of redemption for why my newborn had to die - a civil suit, post verdict discussion with a defendant, speaking engagements, training new medical providers, and now a degree all about relationships and building community. I am ea...

Recent posts reflect my continuing struggle to reconcile the way in which my son died, the means by which I learned what happened, and the conflicting desire to create a Restorative Culture in healthcare. Perhaps this is a function of the holidays. For bereaved parents, each holiday, anniversary, birthday, life milestone is merely a time stamp of how much continues to be lost. At the start of the new year, unexpected conversations and experiences gave me courage to speak of a part of James' loss I rarely discuss. After he suffered severe insult to his brainstem and his cortex, I had to limit my thought processes, expectations, dreams and hopes for James. At this point in his life, I was the parent of a severely disabled child. And I wanted him. I wanted the medical equipment, the doctors, the appointments, the frustration, the years of wondering "would it be better if he had..." I have the advantage of knowing it would not have been better if he had died. It would have b...