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isnt there a 6 week period at least? that would mean in a couple or few weeks from now.
Anyone get word about Drew at UCLA?
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isnt there a 6 week period at least? that would mean in a couple or few weeks from now.
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Any news about Drew/UCLA admissions?
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Any new acceptances? Apparently there has been several acceptances already granted for the entering Class of 2004.
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11...that isnt a lot considering theyve probably interviewed close 170 people so far. very competitive, despite popular belief!!
exmike, i know im in the regular ucla program, but i called the adm office today at ucla and told them i hadnt received a their follow up letter from the dean...she took my name down and gave it to the director. i think you should do the same.
exmike, i know im in the regular ucla program, but i called the adm office today at ucla and told them i hadnt received a their follow up letter from the dean...she took my name down and gave it to the director. i think you should do the same.
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hot off the press....big changes people. but for the better.
5 Leaders at King/Drew Being Fired
Others are expected to be disciplined over lapses that have endangered or led to the deaths of patients.
By Tracy Weber, Steve Hymon and Charles Ornstein
Times Staff Writers
March 16, 2004
Los Angles County officials are in the process of firing five top leaders at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center ? including the hospital's administrator ? in response to mounting troubles at the public hospital in Willowbrook, according to people familiar with the dismissals.
The termination notices follow a series of disclosures about lapses in care at King/Drew that have endangered patients and, according to government inspectors, contributed to at least five deaths in the last year.
Supervisor Don Knabe said that the terminations represented an unusually large purge of a county institution.
"Usually you lose a CEO or one or two of the top people," he said. "But King/Drew has significant issues. It just can't go on like it has been. If you look at the history of some of the investigations and lawsuits, it was the same ol', same ol', and nothing was changing."
The county is sending termination notices to Willie T. May, King/Drew's chief executive; associate medical director Dr. Alfred Forrest; nursing director Rosemary Haggins; and one of her top assistants, said those familiar with the firings, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
County officials also have sent a letter of termination to Dr. Arthur Fleming, who presided over the training of aspiring surgeons last year when a national body stripped the program of its accreditation.
Fred Leaf, chief operating officer of the county health department, informed the Board of Supervisors in writing Friday that the department had started notifying "a number of senior managers at King/Drew" that they would be fired.
Neither he nor his boss, health director Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, would comment further on who was terminated or why, citing confidentiality restrictions.
But the actions were applauded by some of the facility's supporters.
"Something has to be done to save the hospital," said state Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton), who heads the Assembly special committee looking into King/Drew. "Obviously some drastic action has to be taken, and some people are going to be very unhappy. They're moving in the right direction."
The hospital, which serves a largely minority population with few choices for care, has faced increasingly severe sanctions in recent months from accreditation agencies and healthcare regulators. Just last week, the federal government threatened to cut off funds to King/Drew unless the hospital corrected serious flaws in the way it handled prescription drugs by March 23.
The threat followed an incident last month in which a patient with meningitis was mistakenly given a potent anti-cancer drug for four days.
In January, inspectors issued a graphic accounting of patient deaths at King/Drew, including one in March 2003 in which nurses had virtually ignored a 20-year-old man suffering from intestinal gangrene. He was found 18 hours after admission on the floor of his room ? where he had fallen unnoticed ? in a pool of his own vomit, according to the federal report and an autopsy summary. He could not be revived.
Four days later, another patient suffering from gangrene and other problems died after being neglected for almost a day, the report stated.
Also last year, three patients died when nurses did not notice their conditions were deteriorating, even though they were connected to cardiac monitors, inspectors found.
County officials said Monday that the terminated employees, who are covered by civil service protections, would have several opportunities to appeal the firings before they become final.
But they stressed that they had gone to great lengths to ensure they had adequately documented the reasons for the decisions.
"The bulk of the employees at King are doing a great job," Leaf said. "However, a number of individuals are not performing, and we're holding those individuals accountable."
Garthwaite said he had been concerned about a lack of accountability at the hospital, and recent findings by federal investigators that nurses had lied or been ordered to lie on patients' charts.
At most hospitals, he said, such problems would have been caught by administrators and corrected.
Leaf said more discipline would be forthcoming, but he could not say how many employees were involved.
"The reality is we need to take very assertive actions at this point in time," said Supervisor Gloria Molina. "Even if we're sued, everybody needs to know that we mean business at MLK."
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky agreed, saying the firings are necessary to turn the hospital around.
"The director of health has to clean house and reformulate the staff at Martin Luther King hospital ? to provide the quality of service that the people of our county are entitled to," he said.
But Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, whose district includes King/Drew, downplayed the significance of the dismissals. They were formalizing the departures of staff who had not worked at the hospital for months, she said.
"I was there this morning," she said. "I went to pharmacy, the ER. I talked to the nurses, they seemed to feel that they had new procedures in step, and I do feel there's progress."
The dismissals come after a round of discipline and the dispatching of crisis management teams to the hospital. In October, the county moved in a management team of top health department officials to run the hospital. A private nursing firm took charge of nursing in December, and a new medical director started in February.
May could not be reached for comment, and messages left for Forrest and Fleming were not returned.
Fleming, the former surgery chairman, was suspended in December after the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education withdrew its approval for King/Drew's surgery program.
The council said that after repeated warnings, Fleming had allowed two more residents in the program's graduating class than the six it was allowed.
At an Assembly hearing in September, Fleming said the loss of the residency program was not his fault, and that the council's action was based on misinformation.
The firings of Haggins and assistant nursing director Barbara Bundage came after government inspectors found a host of problems with the nursing care at King/Drew. A second assistant nursing director, Margaret Latham, remains on suspension.
According to the inspectors, King/Drew nurses were ordered to lie about patients' conditions, failed to give crucial medications prescribed by doctors and left seriously ill patients unattended for hours.
A report issued Jan. 13 noted that hospital officials had failed to fix dangerous lapses in care after promising to do so.
Bundage declined to comment on the disciplinary action.
Haggins' attorney said she did not know Haggins had been fired. A message left for Haggins was not returned.
But at a Jan. 9 hearing by an Assembly panel probing King/Drew, Haggins defended her record.
"Unlike my depiction as being careless in the performance of my duties by other departments, I take very seriously the provision of patient care," she testified. "I, as the nursing director, reported to my superiors ? locally and to corporate ? the critical issues as I assessed them. And nothing ? well, I didn't get a response."
On Monday, however, the county released a draft report by a consulting group hired to fix a number of critical nursing problems at the hospital.
The consultants found "major deficiencies" in the way King/Drew was staffed, including a computerized staffing system that worked poorly and a "long-standing problem with employee attendance and tardiness."
Knabe said the firings could only benefit the largely poor and minority communities that rely on King/Drew.
"This is people's healthcare," he said. "King Drew is a vital part of our health safety net ? it can't be a place where people go and their life is put in jeopardy because of a simple treatment."
5 Leaders at King/Drew Being Fired
Others are expected to be disciplined over lapses that have endangered or led to the deaths of patients.
By Tracy Weber, Steve Hymon and Charles Ornstein
Times Staff Writers
March 16, 2004
Los Angles County officials are in the process of firing five top leaders at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center ? including the hospital's administrator ? in response to mounting troubles at the public hospital in Willowbrook, according to people familiar with the dismissals.
The termination notices follow a series of disclosures about lapses in care at King/Drew that have endangered patients and, according to government inspectors, contributed to at least five deaths in the last year.
Supervisor Don Knabe said that the terminations represented an unusually large purge of a county institution.
"Usually you lose a CEO or one or two of the top people," he said. "But King/Drew has significant issues. It just can't go on like it has been. If you look at the history of some of the investigations and lawsuits, it was the same ol', same ol', and nothing was changing."
The county is sending termination notices to Willie T. May, King/Drew's chief executive; associate medical director Dr. Alfred Forrest; nursing director Rosemary Haggins; and one of her top assistants, said those familiar with the firings, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
County officials also have sent a letter of termination to Dr. Arthur Fleming, who presided over the training of aspiring surgeons last year when a national body stripped the program of its accreditation.
Fred Leaf, chief operating officer of the county health department, informed the Board of Supervisors in writing Friday that the department had started notifying "a number of senior managers at King/Drew" that they would be fired.
Neither he nor his boss, health director Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, would comment further on who was terminated or why, citing confidentiality restrictions.
But the actions were applauded by some of the facility's supporters.
"Something has to be done to save the hospital," said state Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton), who heads the Assembly special committee looking into King/Drew. "Obviously some drastic action has to be taken, and some people are going to be very unhappy. They're moving in the right direction."
The hospital, which serves a largely minority population with few choices for care, has faced increasingly severe sanctions in recent months from accreditation agencies and healthcare regulators. Just last week, the federal government threatened to cut off funds to King/Drew unless the hospital corrected serious flaws in the way it handled prescription drugs by March 23.
The threat followed an incident last month in which a patient with meningitis was mistakenly given a potent anti-cancer drug for four days.
In January, inspectors issued a graphic accounting of patient deaths at King/Drew, including one in March 2003 in which nurses had virtually ignored a 20-year-old man suffering from intestinal gangrene. He was found 18 hours after admission on the floor of his room ? where he had fallen unnoticed ? in a pool of his own vomit, according to the federal report and an autopsy summary. He could not be revived.
Four days later, another patient suffering from gangrene and other problems died after being neglected for almost a day, the report stated.
Also last year, three patients died when nurses did not notice their conditions were deteriorating, even though they were connected to cardiac monitors, inspectors found.
County officials said Monday that the terminated employees, who are covered by civil service protections, would have several opportunities to appeal the firings before they become final.
But they stressed that they had gone to great lengths to ensure they had adequately documented the reasons for the decisions.
"The bulk of the employees at King are doing a great job," Leaf said. "However, a number of individuals are not performing, and we're holding those individuals accountable."
Garthwaite said he had been concerned about a lack of accountability at the hospital, and recent findings by federal investigators that nurses had lied or been ordered to lie on patients' charts.
At most hospitals, he said, such problems would have been caught by administrators and corrected.
Leaf said more discipline would be forthcoming, but he could not say how many employees were involved.
"The reality is we need to take very assertive actions at this point in time," said Supervisor Gloria Molina. "Even if we're sued, everybody needs to know that we mean business at MLK."
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky agreed, saying the firings are necessary to turn the hospital around.
"The director of health has to clean house and reformulate the staff at Martin Luther King hospital ? to provide the quality of service that the people of our county are entitled to," he said.
But Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, whose district includes King/Drew, downplayed the significance of the dismissals. They were formalizing the departures of staff who had not worked at the hospital for months, she said.
"I was there this morning," she said. "I went to pharmacy, the ER. I talked to the nurses, they seemed to feel that they had new procedures in step, and I do feel there's progress."
The dismissals come after a round of discipline and the dispatching of crisis management teams to the hospital. In October, the county moved in a management team of top health department officials to run the hospital. A private nursing firm took charge of nursing in December, and a new medical director started in February.
May could not be reached for comment, and messages left for Forrest and Fleming were not returned.
Fleming, the former surgery chairman, was suspended in December after the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education withdrew its approval for King/Drew's surgery program.
The council said that after repeated warnings, Fleming had allowed two more residents in the program's graduating class than the six it was allowed.
At an Assembly hearing in September, Fleming said the loss of the residency program was not his fault, and that the council's action was based on misinformation.
The firings of Haggins and assistant nursing director Barbara Bundage came after government inspectors found a host of problems with the nursing care at King/Drew. A second assistant nursing director, Margaret Latham, remains on suspension.
According to the inspectors, King/Drew nurses were ordered to lie about patients' conditions, failed to give crucial medications prescribed by doctors and left seriously ill patients unattended for hours.
A report issued Jan. 13 noted that hospital officials had failed to fix dangerous lapses in care after promising to do so.
Bundage declined to comment on the disciplinary action.
Haggins' attorney said she did not know Haggins had been fired. A message left for Haggins was not returned.
But at a Jan. 9 hearing by an Assembly panel probing King/Drew, Haggins defended her record.
"Unlike my depiction as being careless in the performance of my duties by other departments, I take very seriously the provision of patient care," she testified. "I, as the nursing director, reported to my superiors ? locally and to corporate ? the critical issues as I assessed them. And nothing ? well, I didn't get a response."
On Monday, however, the county released a draft report by a consulting group hired to fix a number of critical nursing problems at the hospital.
The consultants found "major deficiencies" in the way King/Drew was staffed, including a computerized staffing system that worked poorly and a "long-standing problem with employee attendance and tardiness."
Knabe said the firings could only benefit the largely poor and minority communities that rely on King/Drew.
"This is people's healthcare," he said. "King Drew is a vital part of our health safety net ? it can't be a place where people go and their life is put in jeopardy because of a simple treatment."
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I'm going to be soooo pissed if people start to protest these firings. I definately think it's a step in the right direction. In order to be sure you got all the cancer sometimes you have to cut deep.
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bump.
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I called Drew today and spoke to the Admissions staff and they told me my decision letter was going to be mailed TODAY!!!! This is very exciting news..finally I will hear something....I hope its good news.
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Originally posted by Medbound2004
I called Drew today and spoke to the Admissions staff and they told me my decision letter was going to be mailed TODAY!!!! This is very exciting news..finally I will hear something....I hope its good news.
That's awesome Medbound! When did you interview? And who did you speak to at admissions that told you this info? Wanda Hall? Charles? Maybe I should do the same huh? I've been waiting now for 3 weeks!
It's so frustrating
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Thanks guys. I have no clue what its going to be because I interviewed in December....so...they might be sending all of the decisions now.
Repeated Drug Errors Cited at King/Drew
By Charles Ornstein and Steve Hymon, Times Staff Writers
Employees at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center repeatedly withheld medications from patients and administered the wrong drugs or dosages, in some cases even as government health inspectors looked on, according to a federal report released Tuesday.
The inspectors, dispatched to the medical center after a meningitis patient was mistakenly given a potent anti-cancer drug for four days, found upon arrival this month that the man had been the victim of more than 40 subsequent errors.
Probing further, the reviewers found serious lapses in the pharmaceutical care of 11 other patients, sometimes witnessing mistakes or intervening to correct them, according to the report.
"It's scary," said Dr. Robert M. Wachter, chief of medical services at UC San Francisco, who reviewed the inspectors' findings at the request of The Times. "This is a cautionary tale of what happens when everything falls apart."
The report comes less than two months after a separate federal review found serious errors on the part of nurses and other staff members that contributed to five patient deaths at the Los Angeles County-owned hospital. Both inspections were prompted by specific cases but ultimately found systemic problems in areas where hospital officials insisted they had made reforms.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has threatened to pull more than $200 million from King/Drew unless the hospital fixes shortcomings in its handling of drugs by March 23. That represents more than half the budget of the hospital in Willowbrook, south of Watts, which serves a largely minority population with few other options for care.
King/Drew officials submitted a plan of correction on Monday, and inspectors are likely to return in the next few days to determine if the hospital has followed through.
The inspectors' findings point to a wide range of failings, sometimes noting day after day of lapses in a single patient's care:
? A woman with respiratory failure and ovarian cancer received the wrong dosage of an antibiotic on Feb. 28; did not receive an ordered dose of a blood thinner on March 1; and was given only three of 12 ordered doses of respiratory drugs from Feb. 28 to March 2.
? A stroke patient had to wait nearly five hours for a drug to help prevent heart attacks and recurrent stroke. At one point, pharmacists wouldn't fill the order because a doctor had spelled the drug's name wrong. Later an inspector watched as two pharmacists within half an hour picked up the pill bag and looked at it but did not approve its use.
? In the case of a tuberculosis patient, an inspector found a missing dose of intravenous antibiotics on a pharmacy counter more than two hours after it had been ordered, with a sticker that read "missing dose." The inspector noted errors in three of six medications given to the patient.
? A paraplegic with a pressure sore and bone infection was not given a laxative suppository that had been ordered and reordered by a physician over at least five days.
As a result, the patient required enemas on three of those days. Nurses and pharmacists also failed to carry out orders for other medications, including antibiotics, milk of magnesia, zinc oxide and vitamin C.
After the highly publicized mix-up involving the anti-cancer drug in February, King/Drew nurses and pharmacists failed to give the same patient, William Watson, 25 doses of medications ordered by doctors, gave him 12 extra doses that had not been ordered and one anti-psychotic injection that had not been prescribed.
Roger Rosen, a lawyer representing Watson, said the latest revelations were particularly disturbing in light of the attention focused on the first mistake.
The inspectors' visit was prompted by a report in The Times. Hospital officials told the newspaper that the problems that led to the lapses had been fixed.
"Mistakes like this just can't happen," Rosen said. "Somebody's got to address this and they've got to address it quickly, so people who go into this hospital have confidence and faith that this is not going to happen to them. It's a sad thing."
Inspectors found that mistakes had been happening for some time ? at least according to nurses.
"The orders are faxed to the pharmacy over and over again and the medications do not arrive," the report said, summarizing nurses' concerns. "If the medication is not delivered and nursing does not send someone to get it, 'the medication is not given.' "
Pharmacy errors that harm and even kill patients are not unusual in U.S. hospitals. At least 7,000 deaths are believed to occur each year from prescription mistakes, according to a 1999 report by the National Institute of Medicine.
But the scope and frequency of King/Drew's errors astonished experts consulted by The Times.
Wachter, who has written a book on medical errors, compared efforts to prevent mistakes to pieces of Swiss cheese.
When checks and balances are not in place, it's as if holes in the cheese align and problems slip through.
"Here you have slices of Swiss cheese where there are more holes than cheese," he said, referring to King/Drew.
Katherine Knapp, director of the Center for Pharmacy Practice Research and Development at Western University in Pomona, said it is important to flag new types of mistakes as they occur and create systems to prevent them.
"The good hospitals have systems that work through those problems and continually improve and refine things, based on what went wrong," she said.
Knapp also questioned how things could go so wrong at a hospital that had been accredited by outside bodies.
"How could the hospital be accredited and have these systems operating so poorly?" she asked.
She said she was particularly distressed by the patient who did not receive his suppositories.
"I just think it's so sad that that person didn't receive better care. That's a personal, not professional, observation."
In the plan of correction prepared by King/Drew, hospital officials said they had hired runners to make sure doctors' orders got to the pharmacy and drugs got back to patients promptly.
And they said they had added numerous additional checks by pharmacists, nurses and doctors to ensure that drug orders were accurate and that medications were administered as directed.
For instance, when medications are returned unused, pharmacists are now required to determine the reason ? to ensure that the dosage wasn't skipped in error.
County health department officials, who in recent weeks have taken a direct hand in running the hospital, said they found it "shocking" that caregivers at King/Drew continued to perform poorly, even as inspectors looked on.
"They responded inappropriately and certainly didn't behave as if they recognized the gravity of the situation," said Fred Leaf, the health department's chief operating officer.
Referring to pharmacists who dawdled in filling urgently needed orders, Leaf said, "That is intolerable, unacceptable and something that is, to me, unexplainable."
Leaf said officials were reviewing "each and every error" identified by the inspectors to determine what action to take against the employees involved.
On a broader scale, the health department is firing five top leaders at the hospital in response to a series of sanctions from accrediting groups and regulators.
Amy Gutierrez, King/Drew's pharmacy director, said the presence of the crisis team at the hospital had prompted action on long-standing problems.
"There is a culture within King/Drew Medical Center of new accountability toward patient safety," she said. "We've put a lot of things in place in a short amount of time."
Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, whose district includes the hospital, said she had to have faith in county health department leaders to turn the hospital around, because "I don't have a lot of choice."
In light of recent events, Burke said, "they will be doubly cautious."
"But I would have thought that would be the case after the first incident," she added, when the meningitis patient was given the cancer drug.
Times staff writers Mitchell Landsberg and Tracy Weber contributed to this report.
By Charles Ornstein and Steve Hymon, Times Staff Writers
Employees at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center repeatedly withheld medications from patients and administered the wrong drugs or dosages, in some cases even as government health inspectors looked on, according to a federal report released Tuesday.
The inspectors, dispatched to the medical center after a meningitis patient was mistakenly given a potent anti-cancer drug for four days, found upon arrival this month that the man had been the victim of more than 40 subsequent errors.
Probing further, the reviewers found serious lapses in the pharmaceutical care of 11 other patients, sometimes witnessing mistakes or intervening to correct them, according to the report.
"It's scary," said Dr. Robert M. Wachter, chief of medical services at UC San Francisco, who reviewed the inspectors' findings at the request of The Times. "This is a cautionary tale of what happens when everything falls apart."
The report comes less than two months after a separate federal review found serious errors on the part of nurses and other staff members that contributed to five patient deaths at the Los Angeles County-owned hospital. Both inspections were prompted by specific cases but ultimately found systemic problems in areas where hospital officials insisted they had made reforms.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has threatened to pull more than $200 million from King/Drew unless the hospital fixes shortcomings in its handling of drugs by March 23. That represents more than half the budget of the hospital in Willowbrook, south of Watts, which serves a largely minority population with few other options for care.
King/Drew officials submitted a plan of correction on Monday, and inspectors are likely to return in the next few days to determine if the hospital has followed through.
The inspectors' findings point to a wide range of failings, sometimes noting day after day of lapses in a single patient's care:
? A woman with respiratory failure and ovarian cancer received the wrong dosage of an antibiotic on Feb. 28; did not receive an ordered dose of a blood thinner on March 1; and was given only three of 12 ordered doses of respiratory drugs from Feb. 28 to March 2.
? A stroke patient had to wait nearly five hours for a drug to help prevent heart attacks and recurrent stroke. At one point, pharmacists wouldn't fill the order because a doctor had spelled the drug's name wrong. Later an inspector watched as two pharmacists within half an hour picked up the pill bag and looked at it but did not approve its use.
? In the case of a tuberculosis patient, an inspector found a missing dose of intravenous antibiotics on a pharmacy counter more than two hours after it had been ordered, with a sticker that read "missing dose." The inspector noted errors in three of six medications given to the patient.
? A paraplegic with a pressure sore and bone infection was not given a laxative suppository that had been ordered and reordered by a physician over at least five days.
As a result, the patient required enemas on three of those days. Nurses and pharmacists also failed to carry out orders for other medications, including antibiotics, milk of magnesia, zinc oxide and vitamin C.
After the highly publicized mix-up involving the anti-cancer drug in February, King/Drew nurses and pharmacists failed to give the same patient, William Watson, 25 doses of medications ordered by doctors, gave him 12 extra doses that had not been ordered and one anti-psychotic injection that had not been prescribed.
Roger Rosen, a lawyer representing Watson, said the latest revelations were particularly disturbing in light of the attention focused on the first mistake.
The inspectors' visit was prompted by a report in The Times. Hospital officials told the newspaper that the problems that led to the lapses had been fixed.
"Mistakes like this just can't happen," Rosen said. "Somebody's got to address this and they've got to address it quickly, so people who go into this hospital have confidence and faith that this is not going to happen to them. It's a sad thing."
Inspectors found that mistakes had been happening for some time ? at least according to nurses.
"The orders are faxed to the pharmacy over and over again and the medications do not arrive," the report said, summarizing nurses' concerns. "If the medication is not delivered and nursing does not send someone to get it, 'the medication is not given.' "
Pharmacy errors that harm and even kill patients are not unusual in U.S. hospitals. At least 7,000 deaths are believed to occur each year from prescription mistakes, according to a 1999 report by the National Institute of Medicine.
But the scope and frequency of King/Drew's errors astonished experts consulted by The Times.
Wachter, who has written a book on medical errors, compared efforts to prevent mistakes to pieces of Swiss cheese.
When checks and balances are not in place, it's as if holes in the cheese align and problems slip through.
"Here you have slices of Swiss cheese where there are more holes than cheese," he said, referring to King/Drew.
Katherine Knapp, director of the Center for Pharmacy Practice Research and Development at Western University in Pomona, said it is important to flag new types of mistakes as they occur and create systems to prevent them.
"The good hospitals have systems that work through those problems and continually improve and refine things, based on what went wrong," she said.
Knapp also questioned how things could go so wrong at a hospital that had been accredited by outside bodies.
"How could the hospital be accredited and have these systems operating so poorly?" she asked.
She said she was particularly distressed by the patient who did not receive his suppositories.
"I just think it's so sad that that person didn't receive better care. That's a personal, not professional, observation."
In the plan of correction prepared by King/Drew, hospital officials said they had hired runners to make sure doctors' orders got to the pharmacy and drugs got back to patients promptly.
And they said they had added numerous additional checks by pharmacists, nurses and doctors to ensure that drug orders were accurate and that medications were administered as directed.
For instance, when medications are returned unused, pharmacists are now required to determine the reason ? to ensure that the dosage wasn't skipped in error.
County health department officials, who in recent weeks have taken a direct hand in running the hospital, said they found it "shocking" that caregivers at King/Drew continued to perform poorly, even as inspectors looked on.
"They responded inappropriately and certainly didn't behave as if they recognized the gravity of the situation," said Fred Leaf, the health department's chief operating officer.
Referring to pharmacists who dawdled in filling urgently needed orders, Leaf said, "That is intolerable, unacceptable and something that is, to me, unexplainable."
Leaf said officials were reviewing "each and every error" identified by the inspectors to determine what action to take against the employees involved.
On a broader scale, the health department is firing five top leaders at the hospital in response to a series of sanctions from accrediting groups and regulators.
Amy Gutierrez, King/Drew's pharmacy director, said the presence of the crisis team at the hospital had prompted action on long-standing problems.
"There is a culture within King/Drew Medical Center of new accountability toward patient safety," she said. "We've put a lot of things in place in a short amount of time."
Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, whose district includes the hospital, said she had to have faith in county health department leaders to turn the hospital around, because "I don't have a lot of choice."
In light of recent events, Burke said, "they will be doubly cautious."
"But I would have thought that would be the case after the first incident," she added, when the meningitis patient was given the cancer drug.
Times staff writers Mitchell Landsberg and Tracy Weber contributed to this report.
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this is sad. i dont understand.
how common are these types of problems at other hospitals? and lets revisit the issue of how these problems will effect drew/ucla medical students short term and long term (remember they will do rotations there in 2006 and apply to residency in 2007)?
my PI once told me, "you dont want to go there. if you want to go apply to a fellowship or go into academia, they will always question if something was wrong with you that you went to drew."
how common are these types of problems at other hospitals? and lets revisit the issue of how these problems will effect drew/ucla medical students short term and long term (remember they will do rotations there in 2006 and apply to residency in 2007)?
my PI once told me, "you dont want to go there. if you want to go apply to a fellowship or go into academia, they will always question if something was wrong with you that you went to drew."
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Outside of boards, the most important thing in getting the residency that you want is your third year grades. Fact is, residencys want residents who will be able to handle the work and do it well without a problem. That comes from your third year of medical school, and right now Drew has a reputation for not being able to train it's residents, and generally messing up in most ways. Most of this reputation is being emphasized this past year with all of the problems going on. Now, if you were a residnecy director, say at MCW, would you rank someone who has equal grades from Drew V someone from say maybe SLU??? Most likely the Drew applicant would be dropped ~10 (pulling number out of butt) spots on the rank list because they wouldn't trust that the grades recieved during third year is accurate when it relates to the level of training the student has recieved.
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It seems like most of the problems are with the people carrying out the orders (nurses I assume??), not necessarily the doctors in charge of the patients. I do see the problem in leadership though, which is being corrected.
I think if your goal in life is really to commit and provide care to underserved populations, Drew would be a great place to be despite the problems. The program will provide exposure to social issues we don't normally see at other hospitals, which should be seen as an asset to future doctors committed to the underserved since the experience will them in future scenarios.
As for applying for fellowships and academia, I'm pretty sure people are aware that many people are passionate about helping underserved, and know that Drew/UCLA are pretty selective. Remember Drew is not a back door to getting into UCLA, but a special program with a unique mission within UCLA.
Besides, if you chose to go to Drew because of their mission, wouldn't you want to choose a fellowship or an area of academia focused to help underserved/disadvantage minorities in the first place? In that case those programs shouldn't be looking down on Drew graduates......
I think if your goal in life is really to commit and provide care to underserved populations, Drew would be a great place to be despite the problems. The program will provide exposure to social issues we don't normally see at other hospitals, which should be seen as an asset to future doctors committed to the underserved since the experience will them in future scenarios.
As for applying for fellowships and academia, I'm pretty sure people are aware that many people are passionate about helping underserved, and know that Drew/UCLA are pretty selective. Remember Drew is not a back door to getting into UCLA, but a special program with a unique mission within UCLA.
Besides, if you chose to go to Drew because of their mission, wouldn't you want to choose a fellowship or an area of academia focused to help underserved/disadvantage minorities in the first place? In that case those programs shouldn't be looking down on Drew graduates......
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nicely put!
the thing is that there are opportunities to work with underserved at a lot of institutions. now, most drew/ucla grads come from los angeles (mostly ucla). this means most want to stay in cali or even LA the rest of their lives. but, im not sure how many of them would want to stay at king/drew for residency given the problems there. there is no denying that drew/ucla has some bias against it (like at usc, maybe less at ucla), even though as you say it is highly selective. i guess what im trying to say, is that u never know where life will take you and since you can work with underserved at other places, you might want to go somewhere big and being a drew grad might put u at a disadvantage...yes or no?
the thing is that there are opportunities to work with underserved at a lot of institutions. now, most drew/ucla grads come from los angeles (mostly ucla). this means most want to stay in cali or even LA the rest of their lives. but, im not sure how many of them would want to stay at king/drew for residency given the problems there. there is no denying that drew/ucla has some bias against it (like at usc, maybe less at ucla), even though as you say it is highly selective. i guess what im trying to say, is that u never know where life will take you and since you can work with underserved at other places, you might want to go somewhere big and being a drew grad might put u at a disadvantage...yes or no?
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You also have to remember though that you don't HAVE TO go to medical schools like Drew or Meharry to serve the underserved. You can just as easily go to say UCLA and focus most of your rotations on County hospitals like Harbor-UCLA or Oliveview or even the VA-Wilshire and Kaiser LA. These are all facilities catering to an "underserved" community and you'll still get great experiences working with this population. Even with USC, you got USC county.
So if you really have a WILL to work with the underserved, you can do so through any medical program you choose.
But I must agree that clinical training is the MOST important aspect of a medical education because this is where you are training to be doctors. And how can you train well in a facility that is being reorganized and is chaotic as a result, and is not properly catering to their patient population?
Thanks for this update Mike, but it is truly sad and right now, I don't know what to think of it.😕
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Interestingly, in the match for this year, Martin L King/Drew had unfilled spots in anesthesiology, pschiatry, and Ob/gyn. This is probably due to all the problems they're having. Hey, but it's free spots though.
This information was from some guy who received the info of all the unfilled spots in the country. The thread is below if anyone is interested.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=110092&perpage=20&pagenumber=1
This information was from some guy who received the info of all the unfilled spots in the country. The thread is below if anyone is interested.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=110092&perpage=20&pagenumber=1
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Not to the same extent. An to have an Anes unfilled, that's pretty amazing. I noticed the same thing as Slickness yesterday, but I didn't want to pile on to much. I'm not sure there are many people who would go to a program which is close to losing most of the residency programs.
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mmm, thanks for the info Luwi. I guess there are a lot more opportunites in So Cal/La compared to up here (at least where i grew up). Even where I am now... the UCDMC is situated near disadvantaged groups, but the hospital is no where like King/Drew, but students can get hands on experience (for primary care) at one of many student-run free clinics.
I guess I was comparing with private schools and institutions that serves very little of the underserved populations (i.e. serving predominatly people with private insurance). I know we can always do resedencies at county hospitals, but I think the extra two years as a med student will help a great deal preparing them socially and emotionally.
I understand that you guys are torn on your decision between Drew vs. XYZ medical school. I wonder if this topic would be any different if it was Drew vs. Meharry or other schools with the same mission (minus the costs and the fact they are not in CA).
Hopefully the situation at King/Drew is alleviated by the May deadline. I'm not as lucky to be in that difficult situatioin just yet! 😕 , but I will have to patiently wait for a notice.
Good luck to all others who are religiously checking their mailboxes! 😀 I know I am!
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this is really upsetting and sadenning.
the link slickness sent showed other hosp with anesth unfilled besides king/drew. jalby, i guess you mean there were many more spots unfilled (across the board/diff specialties) compared to other schools. again that sux, but is expected.
i would be cautious about going to king/drew for residency also. but what is more immediately important to us is the 2004 drew/ucla matching. again, the problems may not be gone by 2007, but will be significantly improved. and if anything, we go back to square 1, ucla and drew are both responsible for you.
the link slickness sent showed other hosp with anesth unfilled besides king/drew. jalby, i guess you mean there were many more spots unfilled (across the board/diff specialties) compared to other schools. again that sux, but is expected.
i would be cautious about going to king/drew for residency also. but what is more immediately important to us is the 2004 drew/ucla matching. again, the problems may not be gone by 2007, but will be significantly improved. and if anything, we go back to square 1, ucla and drew are both responsible for you.
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i just spoke to a friend. she told me that many spots are unfilled and will remain unfilled at king/drew due to budget issues. ??
volt, i think they are sending letters (maybe some acceptances and waitlist) next week. considering the problems at king/drew, there may be a lot of waitlist mvmt this year.
volt, i think they are sending letters (maybe some acceptances and waitlist) next week. considering the problems at king/drew, there may be a lot of waitlist mvmt this year.
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bump
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thanks.
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Anybody recieve good news from Drew/UCLA yet?
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EDITORIAL
More Trauma at King/Drew
March 18, 2004
Yet another scathing federal review of Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center should put to rest any rumors that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is plotting to shut the troubled hospital. On the contrary, the county-owned medical center appears alarmingly capable of doing itself in.
If hospital workers don't fix lapses in the way they dispense drugs by Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is threatening to yank $200 million in funding ? half the hospital's annual budget. The agency set the tight deadline to underscore the severity of the errors uncovered since The Times reported last month that a meningitis patient was mistakenly given a potent anti-cancer drug. Federal inspectors found that nurses and pharmacists committed more than 40 subsequent mistakes ? on the very same patient, from failing to administer medicine to giving extra doses.
The patient survived. With economical understatement, his attorney says of this scandalous mistreatment, "It's a sad thing."
Given this latest litany of horrors atop earlier reports that nurses left patients unattended for hours and lied about patients' conditions, it's tempting to call for closing down King/Drew before it can cause more misery. But to do so assumes that the mostly poor neighborhoods served by the hospital have an alternative. They do not. The really sad thing is that closing the hospital would be a disaster not just for them but for hospitals countywide, public and private, knit together as they are in an already-strained safety net of emergency rooms and trauma centers. King/Drew's busy trauma center handles more gunshot victims than any other in the county.
So the county health department has fired King/Drew administrators, hired an outside firm to manage nursing and drafted top guns from other county hospitals to keep King/Drew open. It is dismaying that, even so, federal inspectors continue to catalog such shocking mistakes. County health officials counter that overhauling the hospital is like remodeling a long-neglected house; they are finding problems they didn't know were there. But they're making changes as fast as they can.
And the county supervisors aren't off the hook. Spurred by horrifying reports they can't ignore, they are at last focused on finding a way to keep King/Drew open. Assuming the hospital makes it through the immediate crisis and the lawsuits that are sure to follow, its long-term survival will depend on the kind of continued attention and commitment the supervisors have never mustered in the past.
More Trauma at King/Drew
March 18, 2004
Yet another scathing federal review of Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center should put to rest any rumors that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is plotting to shut the troubled hospital. On the contrary, the county-owned medical center appears alarmingly capable of doing itself in.
If hospital workers don't fix lapses in the way they dispense drugs by Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is threatening to yank $200 million in funding ? half the hospital's annual budget. The agency set the tight deadline to underscore the severity of the errors uncovered since The Times reported last month that a meningitis patient was mistakenly given a potent anti-cancer drug. Federal inspectors found that nurses and pharmacists committed more than 40 subsequent mistakes ? on the very same patient, from failing to administer medicine to giving extra doses.
The patient survived. With economical understatement, his attorney says of this scandalous mistreatment, "It's a sad thing."
Given this latest litany of horrors atop earlier reports that nurses left patients unattended for hours and lied about patients' conditions, it's tempting to call for closing down King/Drew before it can cause more misery. But to do so assumes that the mostly poor neighborhoods served by the hospital have an alternative. They do not. The really sad thing is that closing the hospital would be a disaster not just for them but for hospitals countywide, public and private, knit together as they are in an already-strained safety net of emergency rooms and trauma centers. King/Drew's busy trauma center handles more gunshot victims than any other in the county.
So the county health department has fired King/Drew administrators, hired an outside firm to manage nursing and drafted top guns from other county hospitals to keep King/Drew open. It is dismaying that, even so, federal inspectors continue to catalog such shocking mistakes. County health officials counter that overhauling the hospital is like remodeling a long-neglected house; they are finding problems they didn't know were there. But they're making changes as fast as they can.
And the county supervisors aren't off the hook. Spurred by horrifying reports they can't ignore, they are at last focused on finding a way to keep King/Drew open. Assuming the hospital makes it through the immediate crisis and the lawsuits that are sure to follow, its long-term survival will depend on the kind of continued attention and commitment the supervisors have never mustered in the past.
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Hate to say it, but I found that line pretty funny. But wow. You know who I feel sorry for the most?? The current first-third year Drew students (some of whom are my friends) who have no idea what's going to happen to their school.
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For all those that interviewed at Drew or current Drew students....
You know how our files get reviewed for admissions at Drew...now do they then send all of the "interviewed" files to UCLA for their approval also OR...do they only send the files that Drew accepts for admission to UCLA for approval?
Anyone know for sure?
You know how our files get reviewed for admissions at Drew...now do they then send all of the "interviewed" files to UCLA for their approval also OR...do they only send the files that Drew accepts for admission to UCLA for approval?
Anyone know for sure?
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For the UCR/UCLA program they told us the Riverside committee chose the accepts. Then they sent only the accepts to UCLA to approve them. Usually that's just a formality though because UCLA never disapproved any of them.
I would imagine Drew would be the same way as it is affiliated in the same way as the biomed program.
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