Anatomy of Medical Errors

A surgeon unknowingly damages the intestines of a nurse expecting only an overnight stay after surgery, beginning a chain of more tragic and preventable errors. The consequences result in the nurse spending several weeks on an ICU ventilator in a drug-induced coma, having four additional surgeries, and requiring a pump to drain the raging infection from her open abdomen. As she awakens and tries to come to terms with what happened to her, she realizes the hospital and doctors will never tell her the whole truth; she has to find out what went wrong on her own. In order to heal, she determines to write and share her story so others may learn how infections, adverse events, and medical errors occur frequently in hospitals, sometimes resulting in death.