Poor Infection Control
Poor Infection Control
This story is about a man in his twenties named Michael Skolnik. He was born in March of 1979 and died in June of 2004. He was the only child of his parents. It all started one day while he was doing normal activity, and he passed out in September of 2001. His parents took him to the hospital and a CT scan showed the slight possibility of a colloid cyst, but whatever the two to three millimeter dot was, it was not symptomatic. His mother consulted with a neurosurgeon who said that it was urgent to place Michael in ICU for observation. The neurosurgeon said that Michael needed to have brain surgery within two days. It was supposed to be a three hour operation, and Michael was only supposed to have to spend six days in the hospital. The neurosurgeon explained to Michael’s mother that he had done many of these procedures before, and that he really didn’t even have to go inside Michael’s brain to remove the cyst. He said that the cyst was there and was blocking the cerebral spinal fluid from flowing. The three hour operation ended up lasting six hours without a cyst ever being found. Meanwhile, heavy manipulation had been done to Michael’s brain. His “six day hospital stay” became five months in ICU, Twenty-two months in other medical institutions, and the last six months of his life at home, in his parent’s own ICU. Upon the hospital’s further examination of Michael’s CT scan, it became evident that the neurosurgeon’s pressure to rush Michael into surgery was unwarranted. This marked the beginning of a Thirty-two month long nightmare of brain surgeries, infections, pulmonary embolisms, respiratory arrest, vision impairment, paralysis, psychosis, severe seizure disorder, short-term memory loss, multiple organ failure, and near total dependence and disability. Michael could not eat, speak, or move anything but his right hand. Almost every day during this traumatic time, Michael was so miserable that he actually would use his sole limb control to
This story is about a man in his twenties named Michael Skolnik. He was born in March of 1979 and died in June of 2004. He was the only child of his parents. It all started one day while he was doing normal activity, and he passed out in September of 2001. His parents took him to the hospital and a CT scan showed the slight possibility of a colloid cyst, but whatever the two to three millimeter dot was, it was not symptomatic. His mother consulted with a neurosurgeon who said that it was urgent to place Michael in ICU for observation. The neurosurgeon said that Michael needed to have brain surgery within two days. It was supposed to be a three hour operation, and Michael was only supposed to have to spend six days in the hospital. The neurosurgeon explained to Michael’s mother that he had done many of these procedures before, and that he really didn’t even have to go inside Michael’s brain to remove the cyst. He said that the cyst was there and was blocking the cerebral spinal fluid from flowing. The three hour operation ended up lasting six hours without a cyst ever being found. Meanwhile, heavy manipulation had been done to Michael’s brain. His “six day hospital stay” became five months in ICU, Twenty-two months in other medical institutions, and the last six months of his life at home, in his parent’s own ICU. Upon the hospital’s further examination of Michael’s CT scan, it became evident that the neurosurgeon’s pressure to rush Michael into surgery was unwarranted. This marked the beginning of a Thirty-two month long nightmare of brain surgeries, infections, pulmonary embolisms, respiratory arrest, vision impairment, paralysis, psychosis, severe seizure disorder, short-term memory loss, multiple organ failure, and near total dependence and disability. Michael could not eat, speak, or move anything but his right hand. Almost every day during this traumatic time, Michael was so miserable that he actually would use his sole limb control to