He Thinks His Wife Died in an Understaffed Hospital. Now He’s Trying to Change the Industry.

10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

For the past year, police Detective Tim Lillard has spent most of his waking hours unofficially investigating his wife’s death.

The question has never been exactly how Ann Picha-Lillard died on Nov. 19, 2022: She succumbed to respiratory failure after an infection put too much strain on her weakened lungs. She was 65.

For Tim Lillard, the question has been why.

Lillard had been in the hospital with his wife every day for a month. Nurses in the intensive care unit had told him they were short-staffed, and were constantly rushing from one patient to the next.

Lillard tried to pitch in where he could: brushing Ann’s shoulder-length blonde hair or flagging down help when her tracheostomy tube gurgled — a sign of possible respiratory distress.

So the day he walked into the ICU and saw staff members huddled in Ann’s room, he knew it was serious. He called the couple’s adult children: “It’s Mom,” he told them. “Come now.”

All he could do then was sit on Ann’s bed and hold her hand, watching as staff members performed chest compressions, desperately trying to save her life.

A minute ticked by. Then another. Lillard’s not sure how long the CPR continued — long enough for the couple’s son to arrive and take a seat on the other side of Ann’s bed, holding her other hand.

Finally, the intensive care doctor called it and the team stopped CPR. Time of death: 12:37 p.m.

Lillard didn’t know what to do in a world without Ann. They had been married almost 25 years. “We were best friends,” he said.

Just days before her death, nurses had told Lillard that Ann could be discharged to a rehabilitation center as soon as the end of the week. Then, suddenly, she was gone. Lillard didn’t understand what had happened.

Lillard said he now believes that overwhelmed, understaffed nurses hadn’t been able to respond in time as Ann’s condition deteriorated. And he has made it his mission to fight for change, joining some nursing unions in a push for mandatory ratios that would limit the number of patients in a nurse’s care. “I without a doubt believe 100% Ann would still be here today if they had staffing levels, mandatory staffing levels, especially in ICU,” Lillard said.

Last year, Oregon became the second state after California to pass hospital-wide nurse ratios that limit the number of patients in a nurse’s care. Michigan, Maine, and Pennsylvania are now weighing similar legislation.

But supporters of mandatory ratios are going up against a powerful hospital industry spending millions of dollars to kill those efforts. And hospitals and health systems say any staffing ratio regulations, however well-intentioned, would only put patients in greater danger.

Putting Patients at Risk

By next year, the United States could have as many as 450,000 fewer nurses than it needs, according to one estimate. The hospital industry blames covid-19 burnout, an aging workforce, a large patient population, and an insufficient pipeline of new nurses entering the field.

But nursing unions say that’s not the full story. There are now 4.7 million registered nurses in the country, more than ever before.

The problem, the unions say, is a hospital industry that’s been intentionally understaffing their units for years in order to cut costs and bolster profits. The unions say there isn’t a shortage of nurses but a shortage of nurses willing to work in those conditions.

The nurse staffing crisis is now affecting patient care. The number of Michigan nurses who say they know of a patient who has died because of understaffing has nearly doubled in recent years, according to a Michigan Nurses Association survey last year.

Just months before Ann Picha-Lillard’s death, nurses and doctors at the health system where she died had asked the Michigan attorney general to investigate staffing cuts they believed were leading to dangerous conditions, including patient deaths, according to The Detroit News.

But Lillard didn’t know any of that when he drove his wife to the hospital in October 2022. She had been feeling short of breath for a few weeks after she and Lillard had mild covid infections. They were both vaccinated, but Ann was immunocompromised. She suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that had also caused scarring in her lungs.

To be safe, doctors at DMC Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital wanted to keep Ann for observation. After a few days in the facility, she developed pneumonia. Doctors told the couple that Ann needed to be intubated. Ann was terrified but Lillard begged her to listen to the doctors. Tearfully, she agreed.

With Ann on a ventilator in the ICU, it seemed clear to Lillard that nurses were understaffed and overwhelmed. One nurse told him they had been especially short-staffed lately, Lillard said.

“The alarms would go off for the medications, they’d come into the room, shut off the alarm when they get low, run to the medication room, come back, set them down, go to the next room, shut off alarms,” Lillard recalled. “And that was going on all the time.”

Lillard felt bad for the nurses, he said. “But obviously, also for my wife. That’s why I tried doing as much as I could when I was there. I would comb her hair, clean her, just keep an eye on things. But I had no idea what was really going on.”

Finally, Ann’s health seemed to be stabilizing. A nurse told Lillard they’d be able to discharge Ann, possibly by the end of that week.

By Nov. 17, Ann was no longer sedated and she cried when she saw Lillard and her daughter. Still unable to speak, she tried to mouth words to her husband “but we couldn’t understand what she was saying,” Lillard said.

The next day, Lillard went home feeling hopeful, counting down the days until Ann could leave the hospital.

Less than 24 hours later, Ann died.

Lillard couldn’t wrap his head around how things went downhill so fast. Ann’s underlying lung condition, the infection, and her weakened state could have proved fatal in the best of circumstances. But Lillard wanted to understand how Ann had gone from nearly discharged to dying, seemingly overnight.

He turned his dining room table into a makeshift office and started with what he knew. The day Ann died, he remembered her medical team telling him that her heart rate had spiked and she had developed another infection the night before. Lillard said he interviewed two DMC Huron Valley-Sinai nurse administrators, and had his own doctor look through Ann’s charts and test results from the hospital. “Everybody kept telling me: sepsis, sepsis, sepsis,” he said.

Sepsis is when an infection triggers an extreme reaction in the body that can cause rapid organ failure. It’s one of the leading causes of death in U.S. hospitals. Some experts say up to 80% of sepsis deaths are preventable, while others say the percentage is far lower.

Lives can be saved when sepsis is caught and treated fast, which requires careful attention to small changes in vital signs. One study found that for every additional patient a nurse had to care for, the mortality rate from sepsis increased by 12%.

Lillard became convinced that had there been more nurses working in the ICU, someone could have caught what was happening to Ann.

“They just didn’t have the time,” he said.

DMC Huron Valley-Sinai’s director of communications and media relations, Brian Taylor, declined a request for comment about the 2022 staffing complaint to the Michigan attorney general.

Following the Money

When Lillard asked the hospital for copies of Ann’s medical records, DMC Huron Valley-Sinai told him he’d have to request them from its parent company in Texas.

Like so many hospitals in recent years, the Lillards’ local health system had been absorbed by a series of other corporations. In 2011, the Detroit Medical Center health system was bought for $1.5 billion by Vanguard Health Systems, which was backed by the private equity company Blackstone Group.

Two years after that, in 2013, Vanguard itself was acquired by Tenet Healthcare, a for-profit company based in Dallas that, according to its website, operates 480 ambulatory surgery centers and surgical hospitals, 52 hospitals, and approximately 160 additional outpatient centers.

As health care executives face increasing pressure from investors, nursing unions say hospitals have been intentionally understaffing nurses to reduce labor costs and increase revenue. Also, insurance reimbursements incentivize keeping nurse staffing levels low. “Hospitals are not directly reimbursed for nursing services in the same way that a physician bills for their services,” said Karen Lasater, an associate professor of nursing in the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania. “And because hospitals don’t perceive nursing as a service line, but rather a cost center, they think about nursing as: How can we reduce this to the lowest denominator possible?” she said.

Lasater is a proponent of mandatory nurse ratios. “The nursing shortage is not a pipeline problem, but a leaky bucket problem,” she said. “And the solutions to this crisis need to address the root cause of the issue, which is why nurses are saying they’re leaving employment. And it’s rooted in unsafe staffing. It’s not safe for the patients, but it’s also not safe for nurses.”

A Battle Between Hospitals and Unions

In November, almost one year after Ann’s death, Lillard told a room of lawmakers at the Michigan State Capitol that he believes the Safe Patient Care Act could save lives. The health policy committee in the Michigan House was holding a hearing on the proposed act, which would limit the amount of mandatory overtime a nurse can be forced to work, and require hospitals to make their staffing levels available to the public.

Most significantly, the bills would require hospitals to have mandatory, minimum nurse-to-patient ratios. For example: one nurse for every patient in the ICU; one for every three patients in the emergency room; a nurse for triage; and one nurse for every four postpartum birthing patients and well-baby care.

Efforts to pass mandatory ratio laws failed in Washington and Minnesota last year after facing opposition from the hospital industry. In Minnesota, the Minnesota Nurses Association accused the Mayo Clinic of using “blackmail tactics”: Mayo had told lawmakers it would pull billions of dollars in investment from the state if mandatory ratio legislation passed. Soon afterward, lawmakers removed nurse ratios from the legislation.

While Lillard waited for his turn to speak to Michigan lawmakers about the Safe Patient Care Act in November, members of the Michigan Nurses Association, which says it represents some 13,000 nurses, told lawmakers that its units were dangerously understaffed. They said critical care nurses were sometimes caring for up to 11 patients at a time.

“Last year I coded someone in an ICU for 10 minutes, all alone, because there was no one to help me,” said the nurses association president and registered nurse Jamie Brown, reading from another nurse’s letter.

“I have been left as the only specially trained nurse to take care of eight babies on the unit: eight fragile newborns,” said Carolyn Clemens, a registered nurse from the Grand Blanc area of Michigan.

Nikia Parker said she has left full-time emergency room nursing, a job she believes is her calling. After her friend died in the hospital where she worked, she was left wondering whether understaffing may have contributed to his death.

“If the Safe Patient Care Act passed, and we have ratios, I’m one of those nurses who would return to the bedside full time,” Parker told lawmakers. “And so many of my co-workers who have left would join me.”

But not all nurses agree that mandatory ratios are a good idea. 

While the American Nurses Association supports enforceable ratios as an “essential approach,” that organization’s Michigan chapter does not, saying there may not be enough nurses in the state to satisfy the requirements of the Safe Patient Care Act.

For some lawmakers, the risk of collateral damage seems too high. State Rep. Graham Filler said he worries that mandating ratios could backfire.

“We’re going to severely hamper health care in the state of Michigan. I’m talking closed wards because you can’t meet the ratio in a bill. The inability for a hospital to treat an emergent patient. So it feels kind of to me like a gamble we’re taking,” said Filler, a Republican.

Michigan hospitals are already struggling to fill some 8,400 open positions, according to the Michigan Health & Hospital Association. That association says that complying with the Safe Patient Care Act would require hiring 13,000 nurses.

Every major health system in the state signed a letter opposing mandatory ratios, saying it would force them to close as many as 5,100 beds.

Lillard watched the debate play out in the hearing. “That’s a scare tactic, in my opinion, where the hospitals say we’re going to have to start closing stuff down,” he said.

He doesn’t think legislation on mandatory ratios — which are still awaiting a vote in the Michigan House’s health policy committee — are a “magic bullet” for such a complex, national problem. But he believes they could help.

“The only way these hospitals and the administrations are gonna make any changes, and even start moving towards making it better, is if they’re forced to,” Lillard said.

Seated in the center of the hearing room in Lansing, next to a framed photo of Ann, Lillard’s hands shook as he recounted those final minutes in the ICU.

“Please take action so that no other person or other family endures this loss,” he said. “You can make a difference in saving lives.”

Grief is one thing, Lillard said, but it’s another thing to be haunted by doubts, to worry that your loved one’s care was compromised before they ever walked through the hospital doors. What he wants most, he said, is to prevent any other family from having to wonder, “What if?”

This article is from a partnership that includes Michigan Public, NPR, and KFF Health News.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

Recommended

  • Blood, urine and other bodily fluids: how your leftover pathology samples can be used for medical research
  • 10almonds Subcribers Take The Wheel!
    Did you know that spearmint can reduce testosterone levels? Or that different salts can help with different issues? We cover all that and more in this article.

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Creamy Zucchini, Edamame, & Asparagus Linguine

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Protein, fiber, and polyphenols are the dish of the day here:

    You will need

    • 1½ cups milk (your choice what kind; we recommend soy for its neutral taste, though hazelnut’s nutty flavor would also work in this recipe)
    • 6 oz wholegrain linguine (or your pasta of choice)
    • 2 zucchini, thinly sliced
    • 5 oz edamame beans (frozen is fine)
    • 5 oz asparagus tips, cut into 2″ lengths
    • ½ bulb garlic, crushed
    • 1 tbsp chia seeds
    • 1 small handful arugula
    • 1 small handful parsley, chopped
    • A few mint leaves, chopped
    • Juice of ½ lemon
    • 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
    • Extra virgin olive oil

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Heat some oil in a sauté pan or similar, over a low to medium heat. Add the zucchini and cook for 5 minutes until they start to soften.

    2) Add the garlic and continue cooking for 1 minute, stirring gently.

    3) Add the milk, bring to the boil, and add the past, chia seeds (the resistant starch from the pasta will help thicken the sauce, as will the chia seeds), and MSG or salt.

    4) Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 8 minutes.

    5) Add the edamame beans and asparagus, and cook for a further 2 minutes, or until the pasta is cooked but still firm to the bite. The sauce should be quite thick now.

    6) Stir in the remaining ingredients and serve, adding a garnish if you wish.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • Apple vs Peach – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing apples to peaches, we picked the peaches.

    Why?

    Both have their merits, but apples can’t compete with peaches’ micronutrient profile!

    In terms of macros, apples have more carbs and fiber, for a comparable glycemic index, so we give apples a marginal win in the macros category to start with.

    In the category of vitamins, apples have more vitamin B6, while peaches have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B7, B9, C, E, K, and choline—an easy win for peaches.

    When it comes to minerals, apples are not higher in any minerals, while peaches have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. Another clear win for peaches!

    Looking at polyphenols, peaches have a higher total amount (in mg/100g) of polyphenols, as well as more variety thereof. One more win for peaches.

    Adding up the sections makes for a clear win for peaches, but by all means enjoy either or both; diversity is good!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like:

    Top 8 Fruits That Prevent & Kill Cancer ← peaches are number 2 on the list! They contain phytochemicals that induce cell death in cancer cells while sparing healthy ones 😎

    Enjoy!

    Share This Post

  • Barley Malt Flour vs chickpea flour – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing barley malt flour to chickpea flour, we picked the chickpea.

    Why?

    First, some notes:

    About chickpea flour: this is also called besan flour, gram flour, and garbanzo bean flour; they are all literally the same thing by different names, and are all flour made from ground chickpeas.

    About barley malt flour: barley is a true grain, and does contain gluten. We’re not going to factor that into today’s decision, but if you are avoiding gluten, avoid barley. As for “malt”; malting grains means putting them in an environment (with appropriate temperature and humidity) that they can begin germination, and then drying them with hot air to stop the germination process from continuing, so that we still have grains to make flour out of, and not little green sprouting plants. It improves the nutritional qualities and, subjectively, the flavor.

    To avoid repetition, we’re just going to write “barley” instead of “barley malt” now, but it’s still malted.

    Now, let’s begin:

    Looking at the macros first, chickpea flour has 2x the protein and also more fiber, while barley flour has more carbs. An easy win for chickpea flour.

    In the category of vitamins, chickpea flour has more of vitamins A, B1, B5, B9, E, and K, while barley flour has more of vitamins B2, B3, B6, and C. A modest 6:4 victory for chickpea flour.

    When it comes to minerals, things are much more one-sided; chickpea flour has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, while barley flour has more selenium. An overwhelming win for chickpea flour.

    Adding up these three wins for chickpea flour makes for a convincing story in favor of using that where reasonably possible as a flour! It has a slight nutty taste, so you might not want to use it in everything, but it is good for a lot of things.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Take care!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Blood, urine and other bodily fluids: how your leftover pathology samples can be used for medical research
  • Meditations for Mortals – by Oliver Burkeman

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    We previously reviewed this author’s “Four Thousand Weeks”, but for those who might have used a lot of those four thousand weeks already, and would like to consider things within a smaller timeframe for now, this work is a 28-day daily reader.

    Now, daily readers are usually 366 days, but the chapters here are not the single page chapters that 366-page daily readers usually have. So, expect to invest a little more time per day (say, about 6 pages for each daily chapter).

    Burkeman does not start the way we might expect, by telling us to take the time to smell the roses. Instead, he starts by examining the mistakes that most of us make most of the time, often due to unexamined assumptions about the world and how it works. Simply put, we’ve often received bad lessons in life (usually not explicitly, but rather, from our environments), and it takes some unpacking first to deal with that.

    Nor is the book systems-based, as many books that get filed under “time management” may be, but rather, is simply principles-based. This is a strength, because principles are a lot easier to keep to than systems.

    The writing style is direct and conversational, and neither overly familiar nor overly academic. It strikes a very comfortably readable balance.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to get the most out of your days, this book can definitely help improve things a lot.

    Click here to check out Meditations For Mortals, and live fulfilling days!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Self-Compassion In A Relationship (Positives & Pitfalls)

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Practise Self-Compassion In Your Relationship (But Watch Out!)

    Let’s make clear up-front: this is not about “…but not too much”.

    With that in mind…

    Now let’s set the scene: you, a happily-partnered person, have inadvertently erred and upset your partner. They may or may not have already forgiven you, but you are still angry at yourself.

    Likely next steps include all or any of:

    • continuing to apologise and try to explain
    • self-deprecatory diatribes
    • self-flagellation, probably not literally but in the sense of “I don’t deserve…” and acting on that feeling
    • self-removal, because you don’t want to further inflict your bad self on your partner

    As you might guess, these are quite varied in their degree of healthiness:

    • apologising is good, as even is explaining, but once it’s done, it’s done; let it go
    • self-deprecation is pretty much never useful, let alone healthy
    • self-flagellation likewise; it is not only inherently self-destructive, but will likely create an additional problem for your partner too
    • self-removal can be good or bad depending on the manner of that removal: there’s a difference between just going cold and distant on your partner, and saying “I’m sorry; this is my fault not yours, I don’t want to take it out on you, so please give me half an hour by myself to regain my composure, and I will come back with love then if that’s ok with you”

    About that last: mentioning the specific timeframe e.g. “half an hour” is critical, by the way—don’t leave your partner hanging! And then do also follow through on that; come back with love after the half-hour elapses. We suggest mindfulness meditation in the interim (here’s our guide to how), if you’re not sure what to do to get you there.

    To Err Is Human; To Forgive, Healthy (Here’s How To Do It) ← this goes for when the forgiveness in question is for yourself, too—and we do write about that there (and how)!

    This is important, by the way; not forgiving yourself can cause more serious issues down the line:

    Self-blame-selective hyper-connectivity between anterior temporal and subgenual cortices predicts prognosis in major depressive disorder

    If, by the way, you’re hand-wringing over “but was my apology good enough really, or should I…” then here is how to do it. Basically, do this, and then draw a line under it and consider it done:

    The Apology Checklist ← you’ll want to keep a copy of this, perhaps in the notes app on your phone, or a screenshot if you prefer

    (the checklist is at the bottom of that page)

    The catch

    It’s you, you’re the catch 👈👈😎

    Ok, that being said, there is actually a catch in the less cheery sense of the word, and it is:

    “It is important to be compassionate about one’s occasional failings in a relationship” does not mean “It is healthy to be neglectful of one’s partner’s emotional needs; that’s self-care, looking after #1; let them take care of themself too”

    …because that’s simply not being a couple at all.

    Think about it this way: the famous airline advice,

    “Put on your own oxygen mask before helping others with theirs”

    …does not mean “Put on your own oxygen mask and then watch those kids suffocate; it’s everyone for themself”

    So, the same goes in relationships too. And, as ever, we have science for this. There was a recent (2024) study, involving hundreds of heterosexual couples aged 18–73, which looked at two things, each measured with a scaled questionnaire:

    • Subjective levels of self-compassion
    • Subjective levels of relationship satisfaction

    For example, questions included asking participants to rate, from 1–5 depending on how much they felt the statements described them, e.g:

    In my relationship with my partner, I:

    • treat myself kindly when I experience sorrow and suffering.
    • accept my faults and weaknesses.
    • try to see my mistakes as part of human nature.
    • see difficulties as part of every relationship that everyone goes through once.
    • try to get a balanced view of the situation when something unpleasant happens.
    • try to keep my feelings in balance when something upsets me.

    Note: that’s not multiple choice! It’s asking participants to rate each response as applicable or not to them, on a scale of 1–5.

    And…

    ❝Women’s self-compassion was also positively linked with men’s total relationship satisfaction. Thus, men seem to experience overall satisfaction with the relationship when their female partner is self-kind and self-caring in difficult situations.

    Unexpectedly, however, we found that men’s relationship-specific self-compassion was negatively associated with women’s fulfillment.

    Baker and McNulty (2011) reported that, only for men, a Self-Compassion x Conscientiousness interaction explained whether the positive effects of self-compassion on the relationship emerged, but such an interaction was not found for women.

    Highly self-compassionate men who were low in conscientiousness were less motivated than others to remedy interpersonal mistakes in their romantic relationships, and this tendency was in turn related to lower relationship satisfaction❞

    ~ Dr. Astrid Schütz et al. (2024)

    Read in full: Is caring for oneself relevant to happy relationship functioning? Exploring associations between self-compassion and romantic relationship satisfaction in actors and partners

    And if you’d like to read the cited older paper from 2011, here it is:

    Read in full: Self-compassion and relationship maintenance: the moderating roles of conscientiousness and gender

    The take-away here is not: “men should not practice self-compassion”

    (rather, they absolutely should)

    The take-away is: we must each take responsibility for managing our own mood as best we are able; practice self-forgiveness where applicable and forgive our partner where applicable (and communicate that!)…. And then go consciously back to the mutual care on which the relationship is hopefully founded.

    Which doesn’t just mean love-bombing, by the way, it also means listening:

    The Problem With Active Listening (And How To Do Better)

    To close… We say this often, but we mean it every time: take care!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • The Bates Method for Better Eyesight Without Glasses − by Dr. William Bates

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    This is a very popular book and method, albeit not a very new one. It was first published in 1920; self-published by Dr. Bates, as the American Medical Association (AMA) considered it quackery.

    Of course, our understanding of eyesight has improved a lot in the past 100 years, so, with the benefit of an extra century of ophthalmological research, who was on the right side of history?

    As it turns out, all of Dr. Bates’ ideas have been firmly disproven, and eyes simply do not work the way he thought they do (for example, he believed that rather than adjusting the lens for focus, the muscles around the eye elongate the eyeball; this absolutely is not how focusing works, and while how much those muscles squeeze the eye does vary depending on some physiological factors, there are no known exercises that can change them).

    Nevertheless, for the interested, his techniques include such things as:

    • putting pressure on one’s eyes with one’s hands (which can increase glaucoma risk)
    • visualization, rather than actual viewing, of an eye chart (this is ironic, because the book cover promises that an eye chart is included; it is not; perhaps it was hoped that we would visualize it more vividly and thus see it?)
    • sunning, which is not only directly looking at the sun, but also using a burning glass to increase the focus of the sunlight onto one’s eye (please do not do this under any circumstances)

    His primary thesis in this work, though, is that eyesight problems of all kinds (from short- and long-sightedness, to more serious things like cataracts and glaucoma) are caused by the tension produced by reading books, so relaxation exercises are his prescription for this.

    The style is characteristic of its era and then some; bold claims are made with no evidence, there are no references, and the text is (ironically, given his opinions on tension being produced by reading books) quite dense. It certainly doesn’t lend itself well to skimming, for example, because something critical can easily be buried in a wall of text of what is, honestly, mostly waffle.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your eyesight and reduce your dependency on glasses, then we absolutely cannot recommend this book, and would direct you instead to Vision for Life, Revised Edition – by Dr. Meir Schneider, which is much more consistent with actual science.

    Click here if you are, nonetheless, curious about Dr. Bates’ book and wish to check it out!

    PS: Dr. Bates certainly was an interesting fellow; he disappeared mysteriously, but was found working as a medical assistant a few weeks later by his wife, whom he now claimed to not recognize. Then he disappeared again two days later (his wife never found him, this time, despite trying for many years), only to show up again, 13 years later, shortly after his wife’s death, whereupon he remarried (to his long-time personal assistant). None of this has anything to do with his fascinating opinions on eyesight, but it’s a story worth mentioning.

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: