From Medical Mistakes (NAPSA)—The Institute of Medicine has reported that each year as many as 98,000 people die due to medical errors. And an additional 90,000 patients die annually from infections contracted during a stay in a hospital, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. How do you protect yourself and your family from ending up as one of these statistics? A new guide can protect you from becoming one of the 188,000 annual fatalities of bad medicine @ Dr. John Connolly, author of America’s Top Doctors, a guide to nearly 4,700 of the nation’s top medical specialists, recommends the following: First, make certain you select only the best—and that means board certification as a minimum when choosing a physician. “Do not,” he emphasizes, “just take a friend’s recommendation or pick a name from a health plan directory, an ad, or a phone book.” Second, check out any physician you are considering to be sure they do not have any sanctions against them. He outlines a simple process for this in America’s Top Doctors. Lastly, if you are hospitalized, have someone with you at all times. That person, or you if you are able, must know who is administering drugs to you or performing any procedure on you. “Know who is doing what to you at all times,” he recommends. America’s Top Doctors is available in all bookstores and at 1- 800-399-DOCS. Dr. Connolly, co-publisher of Amer- ica’s Top Doctors, was the president of New York Medical College for more than ten years.
