Meghan Butryn
GEN 1033, Honors: Life of the Mind
Dr. McGovern
20 October 2014
Blog 2
As a part of my health science class I attended the Josie King Foundation presentation in the PAC center on September 25th. The speaker, Sorrel King, started the foundation in early 2009 as a result of a traumatic experience she had with her young daughter and a hospital. When her daughter Josie was only four years old when she fell into her bath and had burns all over her and was admitted into the John Hopkins Hospital which is an extremely renowned hospital. Sadly throughout the course of being there Josie passed away due to a medical error. It all happened the day that doctors told the family the young girl would be able to return home. Of course this kind of even would be heartbreaking to any family and it was very hard for the Kings. Sorrel started doing a little research and saw that medical errors are the cause of many deaths each year and this began to fuel her to do what she does today.
After her daughter’s death they took the money from a law suit and put it towards a foundation that would work towards creating less medical errors in the hospital setting. Over the years they have gotten many hospitals all over to partake in rapid response teams and programs that encourage more communication between the doctor, nurses, and of course the family members as well. As well as the foundation being a success, so has been Sorrel King as a speaker. She travels all over to schools, hospitals, and conventions to share her. It began when she spoke at a John Hopkins event and someone filmed it and still today people purchase and use that DVD. Her speech was quite heartbreaking to here but extremely inspiring to all us young health science majors to work towards less medical errors when we are finally working and out in our job field. For anyone that attended was moved by her presentation and enjoyed her as a speaker.