Just heard on the news here in San Diego: studies show that you're more likely to die from a medical mix up than from breast cancer, a car wreck or AIDS. There's something wrong with this system. Probably a lot of things wrong. I know of one--but this is not necessarily a large part of the problem. There's lots of ways mix ups can take place. My husband tells me that, while his first wife was still alive 8-10 years ago, the nurses in N. CA were noticing that there were some relatively unqualified nurses coming along and they looked into it, trying to find out why these new nurses weren't up to snuff. Found out that the tests for becoming a nurse had been made easier by the CA state licensing board, so that nurses coming in from foreign countries would be able to pass them. At that time, most other states had a reciprocal agreement with CA, if a nurse was licensed here, the license was good in other states. I don't know if that still exists--hopefully they tightened up their requirements, but they may not be aware that CA did made licensing easier. I can understand the state wanting a constant supply of new nurses. It's hard to keep nurses for more than 5 years, since nurses' wages top out in that short a time. And then they start looking for something else. Who can blame them? Good nurses are not paid enough, that's for sure. But, there's got to be a way to sort out those who just aren't what they should be, regardless of the reason. Jan G. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx