Did any of you hear about this..a 15yr old boy died of what his doctors told his parents was bacterial meningitus so his parents donate all his organs just to find out AT the autopsy and transplants that the kid did not have that at all..he had a rare form of cancer that only showed up in the autopsy..NOW 4 other people have it that got his organs.

yikes!!

hi lady what can you say to that?......damn!!!! that's just.......oh god, that just sucks!!!!!!

Stories like this are exactly why I refuse to go to the hospital anymore..When I die it's gonna be right here at home with my family..NOT surrounded by these so-callled-docs that have no idea what the hell they are doing!

hi lady no dident hear about it that sucks there always a unknow cancer or illness well heart goes out to the family

is not meningitis highly contagious as well

did you get this story from a reliable source

just curious maybe it is another type of meningitis i am thinking of

yeah, there's those super-viruses out now, and doctors are not washing the utensils properly, if at all sometimes, claiming that they need to save a few bucks....my grandfather passed away as a result.

and some want to know why they are faith healing religions

I saw it on the MSN homepage

CBS News reported it as well:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/01/eveningnews/main3987994.shtml?source=RSSattr=Health_3987994

I'm sure even CBS News is wrong from time, to time, but I'd say that, in this case, the information can be assumed to be fairly reliable.

I can heal peoples pain..I haven't tried actually diseases yet..but I know quite a bit about healing..hell I've done better work on people than I've seen docs do.

Lindyy says:

I was listening to a segment on FOX about the large number of children receiving the wrong medication. Seems that pharmacists have a hard time reading the doctor's handwriting.

I live in a suburban neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. My doctor and other doctors here now have their prescriptions printed out and handed to the patient before they leave the office.

Is not the rest of the country 'up to speed' on doing this to avoid these types of errors?

Lindyy

That's why I'm not donating...that and the fact that I find it weird to have someone else running around with my body parts...

Ok, my heart goes out to this boy's family and friends. I pray for them as death is no easy tragety to deal with.

I don't necesarily blame the doctors. Diagnosing people is extremely difficult sometimes. Not to mention you kind of have to base your GUESS on you patient's testimony. Then there are legal issues. Insurance companies sometimes have them perform, or not perform certain procedures against the doctor's better judgement for fear of a malpractice suit. I think you'll find insurance companies screw people out of good care more than physicians do. There are, however, doctors that get complacent and make mistakes as a result.

The situation does sound shadey given that if anyone suspected this boy of having meningitis the organs would not be donated. And they didn't find out until the autopsy which means the organs were removed before they found the cancer...

Wow, that is sad

Well actually..I do blame both the docs and insurance company if that was the reason the child wasn't diagnosed properly to begin with..I have been near death twice because docs would not listen to me when I tried to tell them that something was wrong with me..I found out after the first time they wouldn't test me was because the MRI test it takes to check to see if my shunt was broken or not was too expensive..I told them for a year and a half that my shunt was broken but they wouldn't do anything until I woke up one morning with my head stuck in place with me screaming and seeing flashing lights..So that day my mama took matters into her own hands and took me to the ER..The ER doc told her that if she had waited 5 more mins..there was NO doubt in his mind that I would have died that day.You do NOT sacrifice a life just because of the expenses!..So yes..the docs and the insurance people are to blame.

This is a sad and tragic loss of life. There is no getting around that and like others, my heart goes out to the family of the boy who died.

All of that stated I need to step up here a bit for doctors. I work in health care and while not a doctor myself I have a few friends who are. Medicine is such an imperfect science. Mistakes are made because those who go into health-care are human. That does not help this boy or his family but I know of a number of dedicated, compassionate and very talented physicians, PA-Cs, and ARNPs who are very good at what they do and very talented. Yes, there are a number of mistakes made in hospitals each year and yes things like medication errors are always user error but those seem to be the only stories you hear about.

We don't always hear about the success stories or about the ER physician who cracked the chest of a man having a heart attack and did manual heart massage which wound up saving the man's life. We don't always hear about the doctors who spot potentially serious illnesses early and are able to help Rx good treatment options.

While there is a time and place to to be outraged by mistakes and while the case that prompted this post is beyond sad, I hope that people will also remember the good that is done, often times at great sacrifice and effort, in order that we might be healthier.

-Drew

Doctors have made some really STUPID mistakes tho..like leaving their tools INSIDE a patient..like cutting open the wrong body part when the correct body part was CLEARLY marked..I've seen so many people go in for one thing and come out with either something else wrong or not come out at all.