Tag: tyler

I’ll Do What I Can: Speaking at the Ohio Consensus Conference on Opioid-Induced Respiratory Depression

By Michael W. Wong, JD (Executive Director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)

“I’ll do what I can”

I said to Cindy Abbiehl and her husband, Brian, “I’ll do what I can” after hearing that their daughter Amanda had died from opioid-induced respiratory depression.

Now, I realize that in social encounters, we often say things that we eventually do not follow through with. After all, we often say things like “we should do coffee one day” but don’t schedule time for coffee or “we should stay in touch” but don’t phone, email, or text to keep in touch.

Continue reading “I’ll Do What I Can: Speaking at the Ohio Consensus Conference on Opioid-Induced Respiratory Depression” →

Not Everything in a Box is Safe

By Michael Wong, JD (Founder/Executive Director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)

The Exception to the “Everything in a Box is Safe” Rule

In today’s world of science and engineering, we have a natural tendency to assume that, if it’s been engineered and it’s “in a box”, it must be ok and safe. While this may usually be true, there are exceptions to every rule. According to the FDA (Food & Drug Administration), more than 80,000 deaths and 1.7 million injuries have been linked to medical devices in the past decade.

One exception to the “everything in a box is safe” rule may be particularly true of a medical device called patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) pump, which when not paired with continuous monitoring may be deadly.

Continue reading “Not Everything in a Box is Safe” →

Tyler’s Story: A Deadly PCA Medical Error

Tyler was 18-years old when he was admitted to hospital for a pain in his chest.

It was a collapsed lung – the second time he had experienced one that year, and a condition that tall, young, slim males like Tyler can be prone to. To permanently correct the problem, Tyler underwent a procedure called pleurodesis, a common procedure to permanently prevent his lung from collapsing again. Upon the successful completion of the surgery, Tyler’s mother, Victoria Ireland said that she “breathed a sigh of relief”. Her son was going to be OK; all he needed to do was recover. Continue reading “Tyler’s Story: A Deadly PCA Medical Error” →

A Nursing Error Led to My Son’s Unexpected Death

This is the story of how the unmonitored use of patient-controlled analgesia and nursing errors led to the unexpected death of a mother’s only child (and how it might have been prevented).

By Victoria Ireland

On Saturday, the 5th of November, 2011, my life fell apart when my only son Tyler left this world.

One week before that, on the morning of the 28th of October, I received a phone call that no mother ever wants to receive. I was asked to go immediately to the hospital. And when I arrived, I was told that Tyler was found unresponsive and had suffered two cardiac arrests. I never got to speak to Tyler again.

Those days will forever be etched in my memory. While my heart will always ache from the loss of Tyler, I am telling his story in the hope that it will help prevent similar tragedies and that no parent will have to endure the pain of losing their child to nursing errors and unmonitored use of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) pumps.

Read the full story on The Doctor Weighs In here.