Hospital Glitch Gives Patients 8x Radiation Dosage
A spokesperson for the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA this week disclosed an error that saw several patients suffer overdoses of radiation.
According to hospital officials, the error responsible for subjecting patients to eight times the recommended dose of radiation occurred in February of last year. The Los Angeles Times reports that, at the time, the hospital believed using a new protocol for a specialized type of scan used to diagnose strokes would provide them with more useful data. However, this called for the machine to be re-programmed so they could override the pre-programmed instructions that came with the scanner when it was installed.
As a result of the hospital's fiddling, patients receiving CT brain perfusion scans were subjected to extremely high doses of radiation, which in some cases, resulted in radiation poisoning. The mistake was only noticed when one stroke patient reported that he had begun to lose his hair following a scan. Upon discovering their mistake, the hospital contacted 206 patients who had received overdoses and found that 40 percent of them had experienced either patchy hair loss or reddening of the skin as a result.
Check out the full story here.
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Epic huge law suit anyone?
I wonder how many will sue the hospital for this mistake.
This is pretty terrifying. Someone needs to be fired.
WOW!!! Thats scary..
Epic huge law suit anyone?
+1
what the hell were they thinking, who goes and overrides a ct scanner... I bet they didn't even contact the manufacturer
Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
WOW!!! Thats scary..
This is why I hate hospitals...
Sounds very similar to the Therac-25 problems from 1985-1987...
I would love to be a lawyer in LA right... now...
What I find scary is that it only took 8x the correct dose to cause radiation poisoning and hair loss
What I find scary is that it only took 8x the correct dose to cause radiation poisoning and hair loss
Only? To be honest I am surprised no one died...
Thats one expensive oops...
Don't worry, this will never happen under Oboma Care if it passes (pray it doesn't), they are perfect and will run our medical care, flawlessly with little wait times under Socialized medicine and for much less money and no new taxes.
See, now THIS is the kind of case you should sue over, and yet I see no mention of anyone taking any sort of legal action. WTF? People will sue over anything and NOTHING happens here?
Take some Rad-Aways (Fallout 3). Haha. Sorry.
Sounds very similar to the Therac-25 problems from 1985-1987...
Phenomenal reference.
I wonder how many will sue the hospital for this mistake.
206
Start the LAW SUITS!!!!
The health care situation in America is fine and needs no over site, as this case clearly points out. Doctors have to ask bureaucrats to approve a treatment, pills with several times the active ingredient, medications rushed through testing only to be pulled three years after release when the body count starts rising, and insurance companies committing serial murders by refusing treatments that are considered experimental ten years into use. It isn't the cheapest, it isn't even the best but it is highly profitable.
People be damned give us the money, the new health care motto on the states.
And thats why doctors have malpractice insurance, the hospital will just settle with all of them. A little red flag should have gone up with someone when they realized that they had to override preprogrammed instructions, probably safety protocols, to get it to do what they wanted.
Wow, the ignorance in the comments for this story is astounding. Yes a mistake was made, yes there is the potential for serious consequences of this mistake, but in reality the radiation doses received by these individuals will most like not end up causing any permanent damage or meaningfully impact the rest of their lives.
The truth is, the human body can take quite a lot of radiation in a single dose and recover with almost no adverse consequences long term. Most of you dont even realize that the elements you're made out of are radioactive and give you a constant dose. I work around radiation everyday, but so does everyone on the planet!
And I thought bricking my mp3 player was the worst a firmware update could do.
hehe, silly misprint, tricks are for kids!
Did they make any superheroes?
Rad Regeneration
When under the effects of Advanced Radiation Poisoning (400+ Rads) any crippled limbs will automatically regenerate.
All you people are wrong. This has nothing to do with the doctors, nurses, technicians, or the hospital. Nor does it have to do with our current or future healthcare state. This has to do with radiation. Ban radiation. Also, ban hair, that way you cant lose it.
Hopefully the people who suffered are ok and this is actually a serious problem, compared to "KID SET ON FIRE OVER VIDEO GAME" or "STARCRAFT CAUSES KID TO STAB RANDOM KID". Also, ban Starcraft and fires, and knives.
Im amaized that this machines don't have a realtime radiation meter of some sort to check the output radiation is consonat with what the program says.
I think is commonsense. Horrible just Horrible
Jesus christ m8..This is why I try to avoid the Doc as much as possible..Keeping good diet and exercise along with some prayer to Jesus has kept me out of it most of my life.
most doctor's have no idea how much radiation a CT scan has. That's what happen's, when they have no idea what they are doing. There lucky there brain isn't fried.
The machines do have a real time readout. The radiation dosage was on the screen during every scan. The error was in plain sight. This is a case where the technicians put to much faith in the protocol and didn't double check what was right in front of them. The protocol was incorrect because when the factory settings were overridden the technicians didn't understand one of the machine's default settings.
It's bad, but it could have been much worse. Luckily it was restricted to one type of patient and they are generally of an older age group. The patients will most likely die of old age before they manifest long term radiation damage.
Im amaized that this machines don't have a realtime radiation meter of some sort to check the output radiation is consonat with what the program says.I think is commonsense. Horrible just Horrible
why should they, you shouldn't be overriding settings. Common sense. Just like the Soviet engineers shouldn't have turned off the coolant to a certain nuclear reactor then stress it.