A recent article in Reader’s Digest included some testimonials from doctors about mistakes they have made while treating patients. Of course, everyone is human, and many mistakes are relatively benign. However, studies have indicated that there are approximately 100,000 unnecessary deaths each year due to avoidable medical errors. Furthermore, we don’t know how many other errors are covered up.
While I’m glad that the doctors in the article came forward, I was still taken aback about the way they described their errors. Even when they admitted them, they almost always blamed them on something other than their ignorance or poor judgment. Here are some of their excuses, and my comments:
– “I hadn’t slept.” When I was five years old, my mother would make me take a nap, even when I didn’t think that I needed one. She was always right on this, although she wasn’t even a medical school professor.
– “The ICU was overcrowded.” That’s why you make the big bucks.
– “I was under pressure.” Who isn’t?
I’m glad that these doctors had the courage to step forward. However, if 100,000 deadly medical errors are documented each year, then there are probably easily twice that number in reality. Furthermore, for every mistake admitted by a doctor, there are probably thousands more.
Now, I’ve often been quite critical of doctors, but here’s my bottom line, and it might be somewhat surprising: I could never do what they do, knowing that peoples’ lives are on the line every day.