Medical practitioners should be used to reading the fine print. As patients who get those tiny bottles of pills know, there is an endless amount of fine print and detail. Yet, doctors don’t always read the label and that can cause problems. As with a doctor at the Virginia Mason Medical Center, who filled a syringe that was supposed to be used for a harmless dye with disinfectant solution. The patient, Mary McClinton, passed away because of the mistake. The 69-year-old’s death was prior to routine surgery for a brain aneurysm.

The accident caused the hospital to change their labeling system and use a gel disinfectant, but these changes came about through the hardest of lessons.