Story Archive

Back to Basics

In 2009, doctors at St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, N.Y., were about to remove organs for transplant from Colleen S. Burns, 41, who had been declared dead after a drug overdose. Before they could cut her open, she woke up — she was far from dead. A nurse had even told the doctors that Burns’ condition was “improving.” The New York Health Department conducted a lengthy investigation over the incident, in part because the hospital didn’t do one. The state not surprisingly found the hospital’s level of care “unacceptable.” The Health Department fined the hospital $6,000, and ordered the hospital to bring in a neurologist to teach doctors “how to accurately diagnose brain death.” (RC/Syracuse Post-Standard) ...Easy: the doctors just have to look in the mirror.