Maine news, sports, weather | Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine

THEODORA KALIKOW: Where were checklists, practice for disasters before they occur?

I’m back thinking today about that oil spill.  It is horrible and sickening. Eleven people killed outright. A whole ecosystem destroyed. People’s lives and futures ruined. All the brave talk about fighting the disaster until it is overcome — too little, too late.

But you know what? I can’t bring myself to rant any more about it. Everybody has done that already.

I mean, I could. For instance, nobody has proposed a new slogan for BP: “Put a dead pelican in your tank.”

Never mind. I can’t stand to write it, and you don’t want to read it.

Instead, let me tell you about my operation.

This is my summer for cataract operations. I go to Franklin Memorial Hospital for pre-op screening. What is my name? What is my birthday? What am I here for?

They do an EKG. What is my name? What is my birthday?

I get sent for blood work. What is my name? What is my birthday?

I bring all my meds in. What is my name? What is my birthday?

The nice nurse looks at the labels and tells me what I have to do to be ready for the anesthesia. She gives me written instructions and makes sure I know what they mean and how to follow them. She gives me eyedrops to practice with beforehand, so that when I have to put them in for real afterwards, I know how.

And then, it’s operation day. What is my name? What is my birthday? What am I here for? Which eye is it today? They mark which eye it is. Everybody who comes to do something asks me the same questions, plus more.

These questions are part of their checklists.

Their checklists!!! I am so glad they all have checklists! The best way to reduce medical errors is not to expect doctors and nurses and other medical workers to be infallible and never make mistakes. Instead, you make sure that they check their work methodically so that they have less chance of doing something irreversibly bad.

It’s my eye today; it could be yours tomorrow. No matter how many times they ask me the same darn questions, I am grateful. I just try not to give in to the temptation to make wisecracks.

Also, at the hospital, they practice for emergencies. If I should have a heart attack in the operating room, they know what to do. If there’s a fire, they know what to do. (And they demonstrated that last year.) If there’s an epidemic, they are prepared, and they know they are — because they practiced.

At the hospital, they know that the consequences of not being prepared could be awful. A botched surgery on an important body part. An unnecessary death. A local or regional catastrophe.

OK, now to the connection. When you think of the consequences that we are now seeing in the Gulf of Mexico, Where was the checklist? Where was the emergency practice?

Apparently, the major companies that do deepwater oil drilling all plagiarized their response plans from each other and included the same dead guy as their consultant. I have not heard a lot about their up-to-date safety practices or their incessant emergency drills.

I have heard a lot of finger-pointing and a lot of blaming each other.

This is typical of institutions struck by calamities that realize too late what they needed to do to meet them. It also sounds as if federal oversight was lax, disorganized and unprincipled.

I bet the hospital accreditation associations have a better track record.

A six-month moratorium on drilling sounds to me like a good plan.

Maybe the deepwater oil companies could use the time go to their local hospitals and get a few lessons about how to behave when people’s lives are at stake.



Theodora J. Kalikow is president of the University of Maine at Farmington. She can be reached at kalikow@maine.edu

click image to enlarge

Select images available for purchase in the
Maine Today Photo Store