The consequences of this alarming level of bad decision-making, wrong diagnoses, and just plain incompetence are tragic. It’s one thing when a mechanic, lawyer, plumber, or teacher makes a mistake. When a healthcare provider gets it wrong, the results are often deadly.
“Let’s put this in perspective. The death toll from healthcare screw-ups adds up to at least 500,000 Americans annually. That is the equivalent of three jumbo jets crashing every day of the year and killing everyone aboard,” says renowned pharmacy professor and medical author Joe Graedon.
Joe and his wife Terry have written a new book called Top Screwups Doctors Make—and How to Avoid Them.
The book chronicles case after case of medical mistakes that killed, injured, or maimed patients. Joe Graedon – who with Terry hosts an award-winning public radio program called The People’s Pharmacy – says the epidemic of healthcare errors is largely going unnoticed.
“No one is counting the bodies,” he says. “There is no outrage, no plan to change a system that allows too many to die unnecessarily. The medical profession seems largely immune to the consequences of its errors.”
5 comments:
This is also in a time were 1 in 4 leave a hospital with a serious infection. Just going to the ER for stitches can end up killing you. Western medicine is very far down the wrong path.
Way more than all the people killed in a year by a gun.
"Doctors screw up 15% of the time" So, how often does everyone else "screw up" their job? Its probably a normal rate of "screw up". My experience with mechanics is a much higher rate of screw ups. To expect doctors to be super-human, and never, or hardly ever, make screw ups is unrealistic. But, obviously, you don't want to be the recipient of a doctor's screw up. It happens. No one should expect that we can get a 100% perfect outcome from doctors. Even machines will malfunction. Humans are subject to error all the time.
i guess thats what happens when you put the power of prescribing in the hands of cops and let cops dictate what you should be on and shouldnt... it will continue to happen until the police and governtment have control over every aspect of our existance.
Sure would be nice if Obama had one of these bad doctors!
Post a Comment