Hawaii’s Tripler Army Medical Center has come under a medical malpractice lawsuit due to negligent medical care. As the founder and host of the Battle Buddy Podcast I feel it’s imperative to share information about the care veterans and their families receive at medical facilities.

Back in 2016 John and Laura Warren rushed their 10 month old to Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii for emergency care. Tripler has a long apparent history of malpractice according to a military.com source, ( https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/05/26/tripler-army-medical-center-pay-295m-malpractice-case.html ) and in this case they delayed critical care for nearly 19 hours. John Warren is a proud and devoted soldier and combat veteran who served in Afghanistan and this issue with the care of his child forced him to reconsider his career in the Army and instead decided to separate. Thankfully despite the negligent care the child did survive but with severe medical issues the Warren’s will have to help their daughter navigate and live with for the rest of her life.

John Warren told The Medlegal Times “They Told me a lot of things, but there’s a lot of things they didn’t tell me”. As it turns out the Warren’s daughter was suffering from intestinal twisting, also known as midgut vovulus. Doctors at Tripler didn’t immediately treat for this this condition and instead sent her via ambulance to nearby Kapiolani Medical Center after 19 hours under their care. At Kapiolani they found that 90-95% of the child’s intestines had died, which resulted in the Warrens spending the next five months in the hospital and watching their child endure a whopping 14 surgeries just to survive. Source: ( https://medlegaltimes.com/Globaledition/news/news.aspx?newsID=dd9zxkSaxRY= )

This is a very tragic situation but one that should have been and certainly could have been avoided. Here are some tips and advice to be a better advocate for your own care when dealing with military or VA providers…

• Be your own advocate: It’s super important for your own care to ensure that you speak up and be an advocate for yourself and your own care. Nobody knows your body like you do. If something feels off then make sure you are getting the care you need and deserve.

• Speak up: Speak up for those in your care that can’t. Young children or elderly members of your family may not be able to accurately communicate their needs to medical providers and must rely on trusted family members to be their voice.

• Take notes: In any medical situation it’s important to take notes on all aspects of your medical care. You never know when or how those notes may be important to you or another medical provider.

While you can speak up all you want and be an advocate for your own care all day, nothing can force a medical provider to listen to you unfortunately sometimes situations like this happen to people. But you can take the recommendations listed as a great way to start taking charge of your medical care and hopefully avoid situations that lead to malpractice as well.

This post was written by Keith McKeever the Founder/Host of the Battle Buddy Podcast. Keith is an Air Force Veteran who did two tours in Iraq while serving on Active Duty from 2006-2011. Keith founded the Battle Buddy Podcast in 2020 as a way to help the military and veteran community be educated and inspired into action to better their lives in various ways. This post was written while taking a Coursera program called, Social Marketing Specialization, you can learn more about that course here: https://www.coursera.org/learn/nurture-market-strategies Learn more about Keith here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmckeever/