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NC Nurse Pulls Back The Curtain On Medical Errors

Donna Helen Crisp has worked as a nurse in North Carolina for more than two decades. 

She thought she knew the healthcare system inside and out until one day she went in for a routine surgery, expecting only an overnight stay, and almost died from a chain of medical errors.

 Host Frank Stasio talks with nurse and author Donna Helen Crisp about medical mistakes.

The incident set her on a journey to better understand the medical system and led her to discover that preventable medical errors are the third leading cause of death in America, after heart disease and cancer.

She documents her findings and her story in the book“Anatomy of Medical Errors: The Patient In Room 2”(SigmaTheataTau International/2016). Host FrankStasiotalks with Crisp, an Asheville-based nurse, about thefailings of the system and what patients can do to advocate for themselves.​ 

Copyright 2016 North Carolina Public Radio

Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.