It's said that art imitates life, but that is a scary thing to contemplate for those who have watched the FOX television drama, The Resident. The show depicts the fictional Chastain Park Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and its medical doctors and residents. The pilot...

Surgeons have an awesome responsibility to their patients. The patients they treat are often critically ill with their lives hanging in the balance. They are dependent on the surgeon's knowledge, guidance and steady hands. One wrong move in the operating room can mean...

Women often have hysterectomies to remove cancerous organs or just the risk of cancer in their female parts. But there is a subset of patients whose hysterectomies actually spread their cancer throughout their bodies and kill them. That can occur when a surgeon uses...

A surgical fire -- which is one that occurs inside the operating room while the patient is on the operating table and usually under anesthesia -- is a "never" event. That means that it should never happen. If proper controls are in place, it wouldn't. Yet, it's...

Modern anesthesia has made medical miracles possible -- and it's used in almost 40 million procedures a year. Naturally, that means mistakes sometimes happen. However, many of those mistakes are avoidable with a little extra care. What you can control If you're a...

There are some surgical errors that are called "never events" -- meaning they are mistakes that should never happen because they are 100 percent preventable. Leaving a sponge inside a patient is one of those "never events." Yet, experts say that medical sponges --...

Plastic surgery is often associated with Hollywood performers who are desperate to look young, or at least less old, at all costs. However, people across the nation, including those in Boston, Massachusetts, go under the knife and get plastic surgery. Unfortunately,...

In health care, a "never event" is a serious, preventable error that should simply never happen. If it does, it indicates significant problems with the procedures designed to ensure patient safety. Some of the most classic -- and horrifying -- examples of never events...

Doctors aren't the only ones that can be sued for medical malpractice. It's possible to sue anyone who comprises your medical team including nurses, physician assistants, and anesthesiologists. You can sue rehab facilities, pharmacists, hospitals and pharmaceutical...

Did you know that the position your body is placed in during surgery could determine how well you recover? Proper patient positioning is a critical part of the surgical procedure -- when it's overlooked or mishandled, patients suffer unnecessary complications: --...