How to Stay Safe When Entering the Healthcare System: A Physician Walks across the Country to Raise Awareness of the Need to Improve Healthcare Safety

This book is an urgent call to action centering on the author’s thirty-five-year mission to raise awareness of the 250,000 lives that are lost each year to preventable medical harm and the harm faced by healthcare professionals in the form of workplace violence, depression, and burnout resulting in suicide rates higher than almost every other industry. The book’s narrative-driven timeline follows the author’s 2,452-mile walk to thirty-seven Major League Ballparks using his love of baseball as a way to garner media attention for his mission and indulge in the welcome relief of baseball nostalgia.

Written for both medical professional and lay readers, the book pulls in stories of patients and caregivers harmed as a catalyst for change in our healthcare system, and as a way for the public to connect with the issues faced by healthcare professionals. Also included are pivotal anecdotes and stories from his medical career that propelled him to become an internationally recognized patient safety leader. This book will educate, inform, and entertain medical, nursing, and allied healthcare professionals; patients and families affected or harmed by medical care; healthcare leaders; medical, nursing and pharmacy students; and politicians interested in healthcare reform. After reading this book, the lay public will be empowered to question healthcare professionals about the quality of their care and learn how to stay safe when entering the healthcare system.