Thursday, October 4, 2012

Victim of a medical mistake? Write a letter like this one!


Following is a letter I wrote and sent to Dr. Carolyn M. Clancy at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

NOEL L. GRIESE
3852 ALLSBOROUGH DRIVE
TUCKER, GA 30084
PHONE: 770‑496-7607    FAX: 770-493‑7232
E‑MAIL: anvilpub@gmail.com.

                                                                                                                        October 2, 2012

Dr. Carolyn M. Clancy
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Office of Communications and Knowledge Transfer
540 Gaither Road, Suite 2000
Rockville, MD 20850

Dear Dr. Clancy:

 I read the New York Times story about your draft questionnaire requesting information about medical malpractice. If your questionnaire flyer is ready, please send one to me.

An electrophysiologist here in Atlanta gave me a death sentence when he prescribed amiodarone for me in four different violations of FDA guidelines. I didn’t have a life-threatening condition. The electrophysiologist and my pulmonologist are in agreement that amiodarone toxicity led to pulmonary fibrosis and the destruction of my lungs within five months. While pulmonary fibrosis is not a well known disease, it kills more people annually than breast cancer, according to one of the medical foundations created to help victims.

I’m a journalist by background – two degrees in English, one in journalism, Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, from the University of Wisconsin. I’ve been a professor at the Universities of Wisconsin and Georgia. I’ve had 17 books published, five dealing with medical subjects. No. 18 is just about ready for release. It’s about medical malpractice and the pros and cons of using CT scans for early diagnosis of lung cancer. It also presents the case for and against the I-ELCAP research project of Dr. Claudia Henschke, who was forced out of Weill Cornell and is now affiliated with Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

If you would like to see more information about my case, visit the blog I set up to start publicizing book 19, which, if I’m given enough time before I die, will be about medical malpractice and amiodarone. The blog is at http://stopamiodarone.blogspot.com/. I’ll be adding to the base site soon as I begin writing copy for the next book.

Sincerely,

/s/ Noel L. Griese

Noel L. Griese