Code Blue: An Expose of Wrongful Death and Injury in America's Hospitals

Hospital snafus kill 85,000 Americans a year, reports Moroson, and injure a quarter of a million others. Yet despite the litigious mood of the nation, hospitals are seldom sued for malpractice or wrongful death, and when they are, they win 75% of the time. Moroson, a radiation biologist and teacher at several leading hospitals, is less concerned with the hospitals' bare-knuckled legal strategies than with the shoddy medicine that so rarely brings them to court. He summarizes case after case of misdiagnosed ailments, incorrectly administered medications and hospital-borne infections transmitted through negligence, as well as blunders by radiologists, anesthesiologists and surgeons. The effect is numbing: this book is less an ""expos "" than a ghoulish hornbook of malpractice cases, punctuated by the author's snide comments (""What a shame""; ""Here's a wild idea""; ""How reassuring""). Occasionally, Moroson lingers over a particularly suggestive case, for example, the well-publicized death of Libby Zion ""at the hands of an overworked and undersupervised"" resident, but too many of the summaries read like paraphrases of plaintiffs' court documents, full of unexplained medical jargon and undefended allegations. Readers with the stomach for the countless tales of botched procedures will benefit from the sound advice Moroson offers in his final chapter: arrive at the hospital early in the morning (but not at 8 a.m., when the shifts change); avoid Fridays, major holidays and the entire month of June; get an advocate to ask lots of questions. But the best advice? ""Keep out of the hospital unless you absolutely have to go there."" 30 b&w photos, not seen by PW. (July)