Outpatient Surgery Magazine

OR Excellence Session Previews - June 2016

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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J U N E 2 0 1 6 O R E X C E L L E N C E . C O M 3 1 T he floodwa- ters of Hurricane Katrina marooned Memorial Medical Center in Uptown New Orleans, literally cutting the hospital off from the world and stranding hundreds of peo- ple at the hospital for 4 days. The hurricane knocked out power and running water, and sent the temperatures inside above 100 degrees. As the flood- waters rose and the fear and anxiety heightened, exhausted caregivers had to make agonizing life-and- death decisions. Which patients should be rescued first by Coast Guard heli- copters? Which should be rescued last, if at all? And Ethical Decision-Making During a Disaster Do you agree with the life-and-death choice made by the medical staff of one New Orleans hospital in the desperate days after Hurricane Katrina? • Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author of the book, "Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm- Ravaged Hospital," a landmark investiga- tion of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. • Also the author of the book "War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival." • Holds a medical degree and a doctorate in neuro- science, both from Stanford University. Sheri Fink, MD, PhD Speaker Profile Jen Dessinger could doctors and nurses has- ten the death of certain patients? Of the 45 corpses mortuary workers eventually carried from Memorial, an investigation months after Katrina suggested that more than 20 patients may have died because some med- ical and nursing staff intention- ally hastened the deaths of criti- cally ill patients with lethal doses of morphine or the seda- tive midazolam, believing they wouldn't sur- vive. Nearly a year after Katrina, a physician and 2 nurs- es were arrested for second- degree murder in connection with the deaths of 4 patients. (Charges against the nurses were later dropped, and a grand jury chose not to indict the physician.) Hear from Sheri Fink, MD, PhD, the Pulitzer Prize winner

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