New York Times radiation article: not worried!

The front page of Sunday's New York Times featured an ominous sounding article, "A Lifesaving Tool Turned Deadly", that related cases in which people had been terribly maimed (and then died) after they had been irradiated, to treat their cancers, with machines seemingly identical to the one that irradiates Meg every weekday. I dutifully read the article, and was of course mortified to read the victims' stories, but came away unconcerned, for so many reasons:

• All the staff at Swedish Hospital act with an unhurried confidence, and clearly know what they are doing, and are given adequate time to do it.
• The radiation oncologist is young, enthusiastic, and very good at conveying to the lay public what is going on, and why, reinforcing one's confidence in his abilities.
• The staff who perform the radiation procedures are also unhurried and careful, while also finding the time to treat patients with care and consideration.
• The radiation staff did a "dry run" before the first actual irradiation, and regularly check their work during the procedures.
• The Swedish Cancer Center is a large and busy center, and clearly does these irradiations all the time: they know what they're doing.
• Our radiation safety officer at work (I'm on the radiation safety committee) told me, on hearing of Meg's treatment, of his great respect and regard for the competence of his counterpart at Swedish Hospital.
• Meg, you will recall, uses X-rays to study protein structures, and hence was familiar with, and very interested to see, the collimators, which shape the beam of X-rays and prevent them from irradiating other tissues. Problems with the collimators were the proximal causes of the injuries in the article. Meg learnt about the collimators, and reports that she can see and hear them doing their job during her treatments.
• She's now almost half-way through her course of treatment, and has started to notice swelling on the affected side of her head, and to see lots of hair falling out on that side. That led her to conclude that the radiation is going where it's supposed to, and not elsewhere, and that it's busy doing what it's supposed to: killing the rapidly growing cancer cells.

The article does report some terrible errors, but everything I see and learn about Swedish Hospital gives me confidence that Meg is in excellent hands there!

The article has some really cool graphics, that vividly convey how the machine delivers X-rays to the affected areas.