The Josie King Foundation's recently updated website begins with the words

"On February 22, 2001, eighteen-month old Josie King died from medical errors. It is estimated that 98,000 people die every year from medical errors, making it the fifth leading cause of death in the United States – more than car accidents, breast cancer, and AIDS combined."

Josie’s mother Sorrel, has told her daughter’s story in person and on video. If you need a tool to mobilize a team, this one works. It has been used by hundreds of health care institutions as a training tool to emphasize the importance of communication and teamwork in patient safety. The Foundation asks others to join them in the mission to prevent others from dying or being harmed by medical errors.

Reporting on the recent UC San Diego survey of 650 patients who were taking cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins and who reported having adverse drug reactions has touched a nerve. Reuters headlined the story “Docs often write off patient side effect concerns” and explained that the UC San Diego research suggests that doctors will very often dismiss their concerns when patients feel they might be having an adverse drug effect.

Dr. Beatrice A. Golomb of the University of California at San Diego told Reuters Health: "Physicians seem to commonly dismiss the possibility of a connection. This seems to occur even for the best-supported adverse effects of the most widely prescribed class of drugs...Clearly there is a need for better physician education about adverse effects, and there is a strong need for patient involvement in adverse event reporting."

The Consumers Union prescription drug blog picked up the story, as did MSNBC. The related MSNBC Health message board titled “Felt dismissed by your doctor?” begins to show that there is a lot of frustration on the part of consumers. While complaints are more likely to surface in such a forum, it is not surprising to see the robust reaction if the percentages found in the study hold for other physician/patient interactions regarding side effects (only 39 percent said their physicians said such a connection was possible.)