OHSU violates patients informed consent with "ghost procedures"
1. leading a patient to believe that an experienced faculty member will be performing a surgery, only to have a couple of interns supervised by a resident step in and take over once the patient is sedated.
2. employing drug facilitated gurney consents
3. allowing several students, interns, and residents to perform intimate (breast, rectal, and pelvic) exams on a sedated patient (only the surgeon may need to do this for patient care the rest is for education) waiting for surgery, without informing or asking the patient.
4. has even been known to leave sedated female patients left undraped while janitors clean up around them.

recount of things that happened at ohsu starting march 30 2009. my MIL ( mother in law) was transferred from silverton hosp. To ohsu. She is 61 years old, also right leg amputee w/ mrsa infection in right groin/ w/ infection spread down through her right stump, appearing very swollen and red, very painful for her especially to the touch, she also has a history of a broken foot on her left side as well as an oct. of 08 sprained knee, also she has a history of fractured hips and back all of which give her a fair amount of trouble.


The first disturbing incident was with a c n a I didnt get her name but she was the day c n a working on march 30th w/ the nurse aaron on 11k for room 8. anyways she shows up, keep in mind my MIL has 103 degree fever and is under a lot of pain medication, with out of control chills from fever, she shows up and tells her shes going to go for a ct scan while she has the bed to transport her in the hall way outside of her room. She told my mil she needed her to walk out into the hall way and get in that bed to go for testing. She immediately states well how do you expect me to do that!? I said she only has 1 leg! She says I know, its not that far can you hop!!! It was @ least 12 feet away! My mil says why no I can't and the c na still insisting says what if I get you a walker. She says no. I told the c na how bout u get her a wheel chair! She still tries to convince my mil that she could just hop out there and she will help her. Finally her son robert stood up and firmly states NO ITS NOT HAPPENING! She is not hopping out there! So reluctantly she brings in the stretcher to the room. What a ditz I can't believe she even asked her to hop! The c n a was a blonde haired, w/ hair shorter than shoulder length, very young about 20 something I wish I could remember her name.


Other issues we had during our ohsu sentence, my mil has over 20 different medications she takes for various reasons. So normally anytime she has to go to the hospital it is very common for a dr to take the time to go over her lengthy med list with us. Well not here. I had to ask every nurse over and over again about her meds. The nurse who was there, Aaron when she first arrived was the one who I first tried to go over them with. For starters she takes requip for restless legs syndrome 1- 2 mg tab @ bedtime she has been taking that for years. Suddenly I find out that they are giving it to her 3 x daily why you ask? As did I. But all I got was the answer of it was just a clerical thing and they would contact pharmacy and fix it! That was said by the dr who saw her the first night didn't get his name though either, I just know that he was the dr that was in to see her second on the 30th. OK well I realized later that when aaron the first nurse was going through the med list with me at the computer he asked me about her having parkinsons I couldnt understand why but now I do, parkinsons is sometimes treated w/ requip 3 x daily! So it is my guess that although he heard me answer no about the parkinsons his mouse finger just clicked the 3 x daily for requip button or he did it before when he assumed she had parkinson. needless to say that was never corrected! she was taking that 3 times daily until released. what a joke.


Another medication error which was stressed to the drs and the nurses over and over again but nobody would listen they were so arrogant like I didn't have a clue!! she takes skelaxin 800 mg tablets 4 x daily for controlling right leg severe muscle spasms, she has been taking that for almost 6 months and for the most part her muscle spasms are controlled. I tried to get them to hear me I stated over and over again if she stops this medication as soon as her levels start dropping she will be in constant spasm! Did they care? NO because they stopped it. No one could tell me why. So this is her spasm medications process: she takes the skelaxin 4 x daily / she has a few breakthrough spasms now and then so she takes Robaxin as needed for breakthrough spasms every 6 hours PRN. Well everyday all day she was hanging on for dear life ( onto the bedrails) screaming in horrible pain from constant muscle spasms in her right stump for 6 days they would only ad minister the robaxin for them which by itself is basically a band aide for the moment. Finally I stopped the vascular dr. and showed him the bottle I brought from home and I explained it to him hoping maybe he would listen and do something about it and he did. she started taking them again on about the 6th day of her stay.


Another medication they were giving improperly was a newer medication to my mil shes only been on it for about 3 months but it has been able to help her immensly. For about 4 months my mil was suffering from terrible heartburn, nausea, and vomiting on a daily basis. She was already taking prilosec every morning and eating tums right and left which never helped. She was able to see gastroenterologist a few months ago where they performed a colonoscopy and upper Gi endoscopy to try and find the problem. Well they said she had gerd and another issue dont recall at this time what it was but he prescribed sucralfate aka carafate, 4 times a day the directions are clearly stated on the bottle which were clearly written on her med list and was clearly stated each and everyday at the hospital to each and every nurse and dr who would pretend to listen they all in turn told me they would make a note and several said they would contact pharmacy to get the time they were scheduling the med corrected well it happened on the 7th day she was there only after I called administration. The directions for her medication was as follows take 1 tab before each meal and 1 @ bedtime on the side of the bottle where all the warning labels are located was a sticker that said shoud be taken on empty stomach 1 hour before meal or 2 hours after a meal well since dr prescribed it before meals that means 1 hour before each meal. Well they were giving it to her whenever, with a meal whenever they got around to it. So needless to say she was vomiting and nauseas with severe heartburn continously the entire time she was there. Until the day before she was released they didn't get that fixed. Just so you know the day she came home and we got her back on her stomach pills right, is the day she stopped having nausea and vomiting! Go figure!


On the moring of the 5th I had called my MIL and was talking to her when the nurse came in to give her her meds and she was going over them with her and she mentioned she was giving her lipitor and my mil said no I take that at night! And the nurse says we didn't give it to you last night so we are giving it to you now. She then said she was giving her her potassium and aspirin and iron and nuerontin and coreg well I heard that and I asked her ( my mil) if she had eaten yet and she said no! I told her to please tell the nurse that she shouldnt give you those pill w/out food cause they make you sick and she told her that she couldn't take them on an empty stomach and that she had not been given her hour before pill( sucralfate) so she couldn't eat yet. the nurse said she was getting that with the rest of her meds. ok well since she wouldn't listen to my mil I told her to put the nurse on the phone then when she told the nurse that she needed to talk to me on the phone about her medicine the nurse told her I'm not talking to anybody until you take these pills. I could not believe it. So my mil took the pills and when the nurse got on the phone I tore into her I told her what was she thinking treating her like that? Half of that handful of pills you just forced her to take are directed to be given w' food! And one of them is directed to be given 1 hour befor a meal I told her I thought she was very rude to treat my mil like that and to completely disregard her requests and if she wasn't going to listen to her that she should please talk to her caregiver on the phone. Well apparently grace was frustrated and she said that it was the first time she had taken care of her and that she was just following directions, she also let me know that out of all four of her patients my mil was the only one she has seen. Which doesn't explain anything if you ask me! I will tell you that finally this nurse grace got the point about this medication though, she went right out and called the pharmacy and got it straightened out .wow I guess I just had to get mad. I had almost given up trying to advocate for her about her meds because I had spoke to the charge nurse that was on the day before about the same thing and she told me it would get fixed! it was so discourageing to find a hospital with medical staff that would so blatenly treat people like this.


Another issue about discharge med list on the med list the isosorbide mononitrate when she was admitted to ohsu her regular dose was 30 mg twice daily well on the discharge instructions they say 3 mg twice daily??? well it must be a typo because there wasn't a new prescription for it so I hope its right! because once again when I asked questions they never got answered! OHSU IS BY FAR THE WORST HOSPITAL EVER!!! AND WE HAVE BEEN TO MANY!!!