Karen,

When my mother struggled for months after her terminal diagnosis, we had several things that went amuck with the doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc. My first inclination was to blame them and want to puruse other avenues to feed my pain and guilt. There was one particular instance and they were going to force a doctor out of a very solid OB/GYN Oncology program. He had spent many years with this particular program as his ultimate goal. When I met with the head of the program and my mother, it was apparent they wanted to boot the doctor out. My mother and I both voiced our objections and said if anything what we would prefer is they spend the time with him to address his opportunities to improve. It was a life changing experience for him, as he told us, and everyone was better for it. If you want to bring honor to your mother and your family, spend the time to help the doctors analyze their opportunities to improve their processes. At the end of the day, we can not expect them to be anything but humans, prone to making the wrong decision at the spur of the moment, just like the rest of us.

I am really sorry for your loss and I thought of you often yesterday which happened to be my mother's birthday.

Ed