Radiation Therapy Mistakes Cost Lives

jmtpi recommends a long NY Times investigative report about how powerful medical linear accelerators have contributed to at least two deaths in the New York area. Although the mistakes were largely due to human error, buggy software also played a role. "...the records described 621 mistakes from 2001 to 2008... most were minor... The Times found that on 133 occasions, devices used to shape or modulate radiation beams... were left out, wrongly positioned, or otherwise misused. On 284 occasions, radiation missed all or part of its intended target or treated the wrong body part entirely. ... Another patient with stomach cancer was treated for prostate cancer. Fifty patients received radiation intended for someone else, including one brain cancer patient who received radiation intended for breast cancer."

Comments

How much do you pay the techs?

[Gothmolly]

So you take a wave motion gun, and give it to some techs who make $15 an hour, and are union, and you expect them to care where it's pointing?

Re:How much do you pay the techs?

[Jaime2]

No, we take a potentially lethal device, and give it to some techs who make $15 an hour, and are union. If they kill anybody, we find out about it years later through some data mining, write a report, and send them to jail. That is more effective than doubling their salary and hoping that they are now less distracted due to the reduced financial pressure in their lives. Higher pay is for people who are hard to replace, not for people who just happen to be in a gateway position.

Re:Lawsuits are a very dull edge

[gbutler69]

I am not advocating increased lawsuits, as the *vast majority* of them are groundless.

Says who? Citation Please?

What makes a lawsuite groundless? Because you say so? Because you feel that what you do is so difficult that you shouldn't be held responsible for mistakes? What is a legitimate lawsuit? Deliberate? Deliberate is criminal in my book. Accidental? When I get in a car Accident, say, I was going a little too fast for the conditions, like black ice on the road (maybe I was even doing the speed limit or less), and I lost control of my car and plow into an intersection and kill a pedestrian in the cross-walk. It was an accident. It wasn't deliberate. It was unforeseeable. Nevertheless, me and my insurance will be sued and I and/or my insurance will pay and rightfully so. Do you not agree? So, explain to me what makes the *vast majority* of medical lawsuits groundless. I'd really like to hear this one!

You addressed none of my arguments.

[gbutler69]

Instead, "snip, a bunch of rhetorical questions". What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Fuck You! You're not a good doctor, you're a piece of shit! You don't want to take responsibility for anything and you want everyone to kiss your ass because you know better and they are dumbasses. After all, you went to MEDICAL SCHOOL!

Noone can question you (with their silly Rhetoric)? No, you are beyond reproach and above criticism. Fuck You!