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227 Comments
- swiharta, on 10/11/2007, -18/+192I'm a doctor myself, and I've come to this same conclusion. However, putting the blame squarely on the doctors is unfair and inaccurate. Although they are complicit in making these figures very real, the origin of the much of the problem is in the pharmaceutical industry, bad hospitals, and bad nursing.
- growlzor, on 10/11/2007, -15/+124Actually the truth is doctors are usually smarter than the average person. They had to get decent grades to get into college, then into medical school then do their residency. They don't become doctors until they are almost 30. People expect doctors to be miracle workers, they expect there to be no pain and that any ailment can be magically cured. No surgery is the same, people react differently because of age, past medical problems or resistance to medications and its unreasonable to expect doctors to be perfect. People put doctors on a pedestal because they can save our lives. I think being a heart surgeon, brain surgeon, orthopedic surgeon or whatever is pretty impressive. Maybe brain surgery is a cake walk for you
- swiharta, on 10/11/2007, -9/+109Wha? The pharmaceutical industry, hospitals, and nurses are regulated by doctors? Please show me your source of this misinformation, or did you just pull it out of your ass?
- swiharta, on 10/11/2007, -9/+104Yeah, I get that all the time (you're not a doctor). Oh well, believe whatever you want. Sure there are doctors on those boards and so on. I'm talking about the doctor who's directly taking care of you. He is taking bribes from the pharmaceutical industry, writing sloppy orders on a paper (because the hospital hasn't gone to electronic records), while his patients are held hostage in a hospital death camp. We've come a loooong way for sure (read about early medicine and hospitals for some real horror), but we've got a long way to go. My point it that everyone blames doctors for everything. Don't ignore big pharma, big insurance, and crappy hospitals. If you want to get into a stupid argument where you ignore what I'm saying and insert selected facts that don't form a sound argument, we'll be here all day long. And in case you forgot, I agree with the article, I'm just trying to spread some of the blame here. I'm going into Radiology because I don't find internal (infernal) medicine to be satisfying at all. This article is a big reason for that.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -4/+75Midas is the leading cause of most unnecessary car repairs.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -29/+97doctors are NOT the cause of death. the cause of death is whatever the patients have before they come to the doctor. the doctor tries his/her best, and if he/she fails, it's not his/her cause.
it's like saying friends are the leading cause of the common cold in this world, therefore we should ban friends. - 11arrows, on 10/11/2007, -47/+106This is unsurprising. For some reason, when you become a doctor, people put you on this pedestal like you are more then a man. The truth is, Doctors generally are no smarter then the rest of us. They just went to school and studied something different.
- gonpost, on 10/11/2007, -6/+47@Achalemoipas
Right...it's because of sue-happy people like you who think doctors malpractice all the time that hospitals charge so much and that the best students are becoming dissuaded to practice emergency medicine, instead opting for potentially more lucrative and more safe practices such as optometry, epidemiology, and dentistry.
My dad is an ER doc and he says he would, if he had to do it all over again, become an optometrist. The malpractice insurance that he has to pay each year is quite high (on the order of $35,000 a year), even though he himself has never been in a malpractice lawsuit (he's been practicing medicine for about 30 years now...he's near retirement). Others like neurosurgeons or obstetricians pay over $100,000 a year.
Doctors also take the blame for everyone else, such as the corporate leaders and nurse mistakes. For instance, my mom is a nurse, and she pays $89 a year in malpractice insurance. Why? Because nurses never get blamed for mistakes. They always say that the "doctor is in charge of the nurses", and so the doctor is automatically blamed. The corporate leaders these days are running hopsitals more and more like businesses, stretching nurses out too far and making them unable to provide good care for the patients. My mom quit a hospital downtown because she felt horrible not giving good care to her patients.
So please, before you go blaming doctors...know that they try their hardest, and that they can indeed make mistakes...it happens. But don't go on and say that "doctors are dangerous" and all this hoopla. I could easily say that hospitals are one of the most dangerous places to be on earth because so many people die there. Well duh, people who are dying often go there to seek help, and sometimes they are too far beyond help.
Oh, and I can subtract about 100,000 people off that death toll. "# 106,000 — non-error, negative effects of drugs 2" Pardon me, but doesn't it say "non-error" right there? The drug was correctly prescribed, but the secondary effects of a drug which probably kept them alive for a good while happened to have detrimental effects elsewhere. They probably included abuse and medications that kept people alive for a few more days in there, which do not belong in that statistic.
Whatever, I just can't stand to see these senseless, unsympathetic doctor bashing articles, written by people who themselves have little experience working in an ER. (the most common citation for these mishaps) - ConfusedONE, on 10/11/2007, -6/+41Ok, as a current medical student, I know mistakes are bound to happen all the time. I also know that most of us here busted ass one way another to make it, so there is some work ethic that drives us to work in this grueling field. The face of medicine now is very malpractice suit happy. We were exposed to some of it in our ethics class. Most students were worried more about getting sued than doing what is ethically correct and there lies the problem.
Another thing that needs to be kept in mind is this, though there may be a possible 250,000 deaths caused by doctor error, how many patients enter the hospital system every year. Sure seeing a shocking number like 250000 may play on the mind, however what percentage is that of the total field. BTW, this article was published in the year 2000, and I haven't been able to find a follow up as of yet. - carpespasm, on 10/11/2007, -4/+36hmm, so people who work on and try to save the lives of people sometimes aren't able
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+29As a practicing Emergency Physician for 5 years and a medical researcher, I'm not that surprised by this statistics. Doctors are partly to blame, Nurses are partly to blame and patients are partly to blame. However, I put the blame directly on a screwed up system. I'm not talking about the whole social medicine Vs. free market model, I'm talking about a screwed up insurance system, Medicare/Medicaid system that rewards procedures and tests and penalizes doing less. We're also scared out of our minds about lawsuites.
The system is just so damn fragmented. When I see a patient in the ER, it takes so frickin long to get records on the patient and to contact their doctors that communication errors and redundant tests will occur. The system is also not very good at self policing it self. Bad doctors should be gotten rid off but they hang around like a bad penny and lead to worsening Malpractice insurance rates a harmed patients. The system needs to be changed. Socializing it is not the way but it needs some major overhauling. - stonewaljacksn, on 10/11/2007, -1/+26happiness IS an unnatural state. It's like a high. Contentment is more of a natural state to be in consistently.
"Dishes piling up in the sink?...TAKE ZOLOFT" - astatine, on 10/11/2007, -4/+28In other news, doctors may be the leading cause of people living for several years after serious illness and injury (occasionally to later die at the hands of another doctor).
- tlogank, on 10/11/2007, -1/+24We all know that Dr.House is an exception to this rule. He's only had like 3 or 4 patients die in the past few years.
- dnthomps, on 10/11/2007, -3/+23Got to love the title and sub title of this article.
"Doctors May Be Third Leading Cause of Death"
...
"Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death in the US, Causing 250,000 Deaths Every Year" - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -4/+23@Achalemoipas
That is one of the most stupid argument I have heard on digg.
Yes, Nurses practice under doc, hospitals are run by docs, the FDA consults with doc, but does that mean a doc is there every second a nurse practices?
Suppose a doc orders 0.1mg of a drug, and the nurse gives 10.0mg by accident, docs fault? - Dumbledorito, on 10/11/2007, -1/+20I would like to see more on this, as since doctors are more likely to be around those that die anyway... It could be similar to finding a correlation between car breakdowns and auto mechanics.
- iRoy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+17This just in: Food may be the third leading cause of hunger.
- ConfusedONE, on 10/11/2007, -0/+14Also remember how hard they had to work to get there. There was also the Boards we have to pass and the countless hours of study to get there. Oh yeah, we have to go through residency too.
Just tossing that part out too. - swiharta, on 10/11/2007, -1/+13Arch - Good to see you've seen the light, and are putting the blame on the system instead of just the doctors. It's a mess. The AMA is a great and benevolent organization with patient's interests in mind, but they don't stand a chance compared to big pharma, insurance companies, and hospitals when it comes to making policies for patient care.
- Ubergoober3, on 10/11/2007, -3/+14Are they accounting the billions of lives doctors have saved?
- QueenMary, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10What grades you get determines what kind of doctor you will be. You're not going to be a neurosurgeon with a C average. That's not to say a low-scoring student can't present a danger to his/her patients, but a lot of what I would call the "high-risk" jobs (heart surgeon, brain surgeon, etc) are limited to the best of the best.
- tekmonkey, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10How about... doctors are the first leading cause of non-death.
- ChrisAlbon, on 10/11/2007, -6/+15The article is wrong. The effect is caused by selection bias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias
Basically the article's logic works like this:
1. Only sick people visit doctors.
2. Sick people die more.
3. ?????
4. Doctors killed the sick people. - swiharta, on 10/11/2007, -5/+14It's called defensive medicine Achalemoipas (although it can have an offensive effect). You can thank the big insurance companies for a lot of that.
- pharmd, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10How can hospital acquired infections and side effects of drugs be counted into this final figure?
- FearlessFreep, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10and some post on digg
- scotchtape4, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9Actually, doctors are usually smarter than the rest of society. According to "Know Your Child's IQ" by Glen Wilson and Diana Grylls, the average physician's IQ is 130 (We can argue if IQ is really a measure for intelligence, but that's besides the point.)
It is unfortunate but inevitable that physicians will make mistakes. We can try to minimize them and we have been over the last hundred years or so. Read Atul Gawande's "Better" to hear his take on it. However, physicians don't have a debugger.
To everyone who thinks that doctor's are intentionally causing harm, you are wrong. It takes a high level of altruism to go through four years of undergrad, four years of medical school, 3-5 years of residency and to start off with a debt of over 200,000+. - Arhat, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8In reading all your posts, doctors are human beings I agree but to say they have average intelligence is just *****. The MCAT is one of the hardest exam in the country with the USMLE being even harder. The C-Student will never become your heart doctor, your orthopedic surgeon etc because even then, they must apply again for residency in that specialty which isn't easy. As for the statistics, once again they are human.
There is a medical hierarchy here that many of you are missing. There is nurse practitioner (She is allowed to prescribe ), a Physician Assistant (allowed to prescribe) , a clinical pharmacist and the medical doctor. The MD is obviously at the top of food chain. The doctor is in charge of these people, but he can't manage everyone. He's only human.
There a UNIFIED effort to patient care except one entity imho, big pharma. What the drug companies do is market a drug, (ex: Prilosec), change one molecule (Nexium) and make a new patent and profit enormously from it. There called "me-too" drugs. Its the same drug, but different name. They are killing health care.
I think everyone should read Marcia Angell's book "The Truth About Drug Companies. If you look at the first review at Amazon.com guess who gave it a glowingly positive review? That's right, Peter Rost MD, former vice president of Pfizer who testified against his own company. - nebrfan, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7Remember, that 'C-Student' in medical school was among the top 5-10% of a self-limiting group of straight-A college students w/ majors in the hard sciences.
At my medical school we don't even have arbitrary cut-offs for grades (suchs as 90% = A, 80% = B, and so on) - Only the top 5% are given A's, the next 10% = Bs - The rest of the ~ 85% "passing" grades - Also, the bottom 5% get a marginal or fail. That means that 5% of the class MUST fail EVERY test. The tests are insanely hard - the professors are required to take classes on proper 'question writing skills' and many of the questions have multiple right answers, with one being "more right" - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9@mrfurlan: YES you are right. I show up to work to stick needles in people, shove plastic down their throats to earn a living. I don't care about these biological things called people. I laugh when people die...and I eat placenta for fun. /sarc
PS: I should have gone into engineering... - Snarfy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7News flash! The software industry is the third leading cause of software errors, just below spyware and worms.
Those statistics don't count for what lives the medical industry has saved. Most of us would not even be here (vaccinations, penicillin, etc.).
They are only counting the negative when in fact the positive greatly outweighs the negative. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9How many lives do doctors save/year? Who has the best medical technology and information in the world?
- swiharta, on 10/11/2007, -3/+10Haha, nice. This is true, I wonder how it all balances out.
- thismortalshade, on 10/11/2007, -5/+12@aegisgfx:
I thought Midas was the leading cause of things turning into gold . . . - ConfusedONE, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8I don't believe you are a doctor, all the stuff you said is ridiculous. Sensationalist text for SPAM.
- robbh66, on 10/11/2007, -3/+9@smartass007
"too many doctors, like politicians, enter their profession not for public service, but for personal wealth. therefore, it's very easy for 'big pharma' and insurance lobbyists to mollify opposition with money. and they do. and people suffer and die."
You're obviously not current on the subject. Doctor's wages have plummeted in the past decade while big insurance has skyrocketed. Trust me, there are not that many Doctor's who go into the profession these days hoping to strike it big.
With that said, do Doctor's generally make a good living? Yes, but do they work their ass off? Absolutely.
Trust me, as smart as most Doctors are- there are a lot easier ways to make money with less work than what they do. - IShouldBeWorkin, on 10/11/2007, -4/+10Site's Down, heres the article:
Is US Health Really the Best in the World?
Author Information Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH
JCO00061
Information concerning the deficiencies of US medical care has been accumulating. The fact that more than 40 million people have no health insurance is well known. The high cost of the health care system is considered to be a deficit, but seems to be tolerated under the assumption that better health results from more expensive care, despite evidence from a few studies indicating that as many as 20% to 30% of patients receive contraindicated care.1 In addition, with the release of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report "To Err Is Human,"2 millions of Americans learned, for the first time, that an estimated 44,000 to 98,000 among them die each year as a result of medical errors.
The fact is that the US population does not have anywhere near the best health in the world. Of 13 countries in a recent comparison,3 the United States ranks an average of 12th (second from the bottom) for 16 available health indicators. Countries in order of their average ranking on the health indicators (with the first being the best) are Japan, Sweden, Canada, France, Australia, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Belgium, the United States, and Germany. Rankings of the United States on the separate indicators3 are:
*
13th (last) for low-birth-weight percentages
*
13th for neonatal mortality and infant mortality overall
*
11th for postneonatal mortality
*
13th for years of potential life lost (excluding external causes)
*
11th for life expectancy at 1 year for females, 12th for males
*
10th for life expectancy at 15 years for females, 12th for males
*
10th for life expectancy at 40 years for females, 9th for males
*
7th for life expectancy at 65 years for females, 7th for males
*
3rd for life expectancy at 80 years for females, 3rd for males
*
10th for age-adjusted mortality
The poor performance of the United States was recently confirmed by the World Health Organization, which used different indicators. Using data on disability-adjusted life expectancy, child survival to age 5 years, experiences with the health care system, disparities across social groups in experiences with the health care system, and equality of family out-of-pocket expenditures for health care (regardless of need for services), this report ranked the United States as 15th among 25 industrialized countries.4 Thus, the figures regarding the poor position of the United States in health worldwide are robust and not dependent on the particular measures used. Common explanations for this poor performance fail to implicate the health system. The perception is that the American public "behaves badly" by smoking, drinking, and perpetrating violence. The data show otherwise, at least relatively. The proportion of females who smoke ranges from 14% in Japan to 41% in Denmark; in the United States, it is 24% (fifth best). For males, the range is from 26% in Sweden to 61% in Japan; it is 28% in the United States (third best).
The data for alcoholic beverage consumption are similar: the United States ranks fifth best. Thus, although tobacco use and alcohol use in excess are clearly harmful to health, they do not account for the relatively poor position of the United States on these health indicators. The data on years of potential life lost exclude external causes associated with deaths due to motor vehicle collisions and violence, and it is still the worst among the 13 countries.3 Dietary differences have been demonstrated to be related to differences in mortality across countries,5 but the United States has relatively low consumption of animal fats (fifth lowest in men aged 55-64 years in 20 industrialized countries) and the third lowest mean cholesterol concentrations among men aged 50 to 70 years among 13 industrialized countries.6
The real explanation for relatively poor health in the United States is undoubtedly complex and multifactorial. From a health system viewpoint, it is possible that the historic failure to build a strong primary care infrastructure could play some role. A wealth of evidence3 documents the benefits of characteristics associated with primary care performance. Of the 7 countries in the top of the average health ranking, 5 have strong primary care infrastructures. Although better access to care, including universal health insurance, is widely considered to be the solution, there is evidence that the major benefit of access accrues only when it facilitates receipt of primary care.3, 7 The health care system also may contribute to poor health through its adverse effects. For example, US estimates8-10 of the combined effect of errors and adverse effects that occur because of iatrogenic damage not associated with recognizable error include:
*
12,000 deaths/year from unnecessary surgery
*
7000 deaths/year from medication errors in hospitals
*
20,000 deaths/year from other errors in hospitals
*
80,000 deaths/year from nosocomial infections in hospitals
*
106,000 deaths/year from nonerror, adverse effects of medications
These total to 225,000 deaths per year from iatrogenic causes. Three caveats should be noted. First, most of the data are derived from studies in hospitalized patients. Second, these estimates are for deaths only and do not include adverse effects that are associated with disability or discomfort. Third, the estimates of death due to error are lower than those in the IOM report.1 If the higher estimates are used, the deaths due to iatrogenic causes would range from 230,000 to 284,000. In any case, 225,000 deaths per year constitutes the third leading cause of death in the United States, after deaths from heart disease and cancer. Even if these figures are overestimated, there is a wide margin between these numbers of deaths and the next leading cause of death (cerebrovascular disease).
One analysis overcomes some of these limitations by estimating adverse effects in outpatient care and including adverse effects other than death.11 It concluded that between 4% and 18% of consecutive patients experience adverse effects in outpatient settings, with 116 million extra physician visits, 77 million extra prescriptions, 17 million emergency department visits, 8 million hospitalizations, 3 million long-term admissions, 199,000 additional deaths, and $77 billion in extra costs (equivalent to the aggregate cost of care of patients with diabetes).11
Another possible contributor to the poor performance of the United States on health indicators is the high degree of income inequality in this country. An extensive literature documents the enduring adverse effects of low socioeconomic position on health; a newer and accumulating literature suggests the adverse effects not only of low social position but, especially, low relative social position in industrialized countries.12 Among the 13 countries included in the international comparison mentioned above, the US position on income inequality is 11th (third worst). Sweden ranks the best on income equality (when income is calculated after taxes and including social transfers), matching its high position for health indicators. There is an imperfect relationship between rankings on income inequality and health, although the United States is the only country in a poor position on both (B.S., unpublished data, 2000).
An intriguing aspect of the data is the differences in ranking for the different age groups. US children are particularly disadvantaged, whereas elderly persons are much less so. Judging from the data on life expectancy at different ages, the US population becomes less disadvantaged as it ages, but even the relatively advantaged position of elderly persons in the United States is slipping. The US relative position for life expectancy in the oldest age group was better in the 1980s than in the 1990s.13 The long-existing poor ranking of the United States with regard to infant mortality14 has been a cause for concern; it is not a result of the high percentages of low birth weight and infant mortality among the black population, because the international ranking hardly changes when data for the white population only are used.
Whereas definitive explanations for the relatively poor position of the United States continue to be elusive, there are sufficient hints as to their nature to provide the basis for consideration of neglected factors:
(1) The nature and operation of the health care system. In the United States, in contrast to many other countries, the extent to which receipt of services from primary care physicians vs specialists affects overall health and survival has not been considered. While available data indicate that specialty care is associated with better quality of care for specific conditions in the purview of the specialist,15 the data on general medical care suggest otherwise.16 National surveys almost all fail to obtain data on the extent to which the care received fulfills the criteria for primary care, so it is not possible to examine the relationships between individual and community health characteristics and the type of care received.
(2) The relationship between iatrogenic effects (including both error and nonerror adverse events) and type of care received. The results of international surveys document the high availability of technology in the United States. Among 29 countries, the United States is second only to Japan in the availability of magnetic resonance imaging units and computed tomography scanners per million population.17 Japan, however, ranks highest on health, whereas the United States ranks among the lowest. It is possible that the high use of technology in Japan is limited to diagnostic technology not matched by high rates of treatment, whereas in the United States, high use of diagnostic technology may be linked to the "cascade effect"18 and to more treatment. Supporting this possibility are data showing that the number of employees per bed (full-time equivalents) in the United States is highest among the countries ranked, whereas they are very low in Japan17far lower than can be accounted for by the common practice of having family members rather than hospital staff provide the amenities of hospital care.
How cause of death and outpatient diagnoses are coded does not facilitate an understanding of the extent to which iatrogenic causes of ill health are operative. Consistent use of "E" codes (external causes of injury and poisoning) would improve the likelihood of their recognition because these ICD (International Classification of Diseases) codes permit attribution of cause of effect to "Drugs, Medicinal, and Biological Substances Causing Adverse Effects in Therapeutic Use." More consistent use of codes for "Complications of Surgical and Medical Care" (ICD codes 960-979 and 996-999) might improve the recognition of the magnitude of their effect; currently, most deaths resulting from these underlying causes are likely to be coded according to the immediate cause of death (such as organ failure). The suggestions of the IOM document on mandatory reporting of adverse effects might improve reporting in hospital settings, but it is unlikely to affect underreporting of adverse events in noninstitutional settings. Only better record keeping, with documentation of all interventions and resulting health status (including symptoms and signs), is likely to improve the current ability to understand both the adverse and positive effects of health care.
(3) The relationships among income inequality, social disadvantage, and characteristics of health systems, including the relative contributions of primary care and specialty care. Recent studies using physician-to-population ratios (as a proxy for unavailable data on actual receipt of health services according to their type) have shown that the higher the primary care physician–to–population ratio in a state, the better most health outcomes are.19 The influence of specialty physician–to–population ratios and of specialist–to–primary care physician ratios has not been adequately studied, but preliminary and relatively superficial analyses suggest that the converse may be the case. Inclusion of income inequality variables in the analysis does not eliminate the positive effect of primary care. Furthermore, states that have more equitable distributions of income also are more likely to have better primary care resource availability, thus raising questions about the relationships among a host of social and health policy characteristics that determine what and how resources are available.
Recognition of the harmful effects of health care interventions, and the likely possibility that they account for a substantial proportion of the excess deaths in the United States compared with other comparably industrialized nations, sheds new light on imperatives for research and health policy. Alternative explanations for these realities deserve intensive exploration.
Alt link: http://www.noblindmen.com/Is%20US%20Health%20Really%20the%20Best.htm - hfactor, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5"Others like neurosurgeons or obstetricians pay over $100,000 a year."
That´s insane. In Germany you´ll very rarely find a doctor that even earns that much.
son of assistant medical director - TheKillDoctor, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Finally an article that's all about me.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -9/+14@scrabby: Herbs are dirty drugs. They have active ingredients that has no fixed doses and many other cross reactions. Do you know what's in these herbs? If the active ingredient was useful it has been purified.
Do you eat willowbark? Its aspirin
Do you drink foxglove tea? That's digitalis
What's in Ginseng? It has some digitalis effects, some cyanide effects, some blood thinning effects. What the hell does that do for you? If you want to thin your blood; you take a medicine specifically to thin your blood, why do you need other crap?
As for deaths?
Quality of alternative medicine--complications and avoidable deaths. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2103876&dopt=Abstract
Herbal Medicines and Breast Cancer Risk http://envirocancer.cornell.edu/factsheet/diet/fs53.herbal.cfm
What about Ma Huang? Ephedra? - scubajim, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6 swiharta,
Dr.s resist electronic records systems. (I know I used to work for an EMR company aimed at the ambulatory care market) Very few people in the medical profession (Dr.s, nurses, etc.) want to see patience suffer or die. Very few of them want to do a poor job. The vast majority of them are hard working caring professionals. They are human. The problem isn't that they don't care; the problem is that they don't refine standard procedures enough to minimize the probability of failure. (eg writing 0.1 milligrams for a doseage vs .1 milligrams. They mean the same thing but it is easy - even if it is printed to miss the decimal point. The leading zero can alert you to the fact that whomever is reading the prescription needs to look for a decimal point.)
There was an excellent report in the Harvard Business review a couple of years ago on applying lean manufacturing techniques to standardized medical processes in 5 hospitals near Pittsburg. In each area they made signifigant improvments in patient care (reduced deaths and suffering from medical mistakes). This lead to less cost - because the hospital didn't have to "fix" those people - and less rework - resource taken away due to having to concentrate on patienties suffering from medical mistakes. None of this is taught in medical school. Dr.s are smart, but they need to understand they are not gods. They need to work collabratively with other medical professionals. - spriggig, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Complete article here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june07/groopman_05-15.html
Dr. Jerome Groopman of Harvard is a leading authority on blood, cancer and HIV.
From personal and professional experience, he's found that doctors frequently make mistakes in diagnosis, figuring out the nature and cause of a patient's disease. He's written a new book about it called "How Doctors Think."
...
DR. JEROME GROOPMAN: Several years ago, I had trauma to my right hand. I saw six hand surgeons and got four different opinions.
The first one I saw, after doing x-rays and an MRI scan, he said, "You know, you have a hyper reactive synovium." The synovium is the lining of the wrist. I'd never heard of such a thing. I asked other colleagues, and I actually went on the Internet, and I couldn't find it. He invented a diagnosis. - Nysul, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5# 12,000 — unnecessary surgery
# 7,000 — medication errors in hospitals
# 20,000 — other errors in hospitals
# 80,000 — infections in hospitals
# 106,000 — non-error, negative effects of drugs
So pretty much avoid hospitals if you can (ignoring the 106k because that is just stupid, it says non-error, so the doc can't be blamed), but I was already doing this anyways.
It is rather difficult as a doctor (currently a med student in rotations). I would say (out of my limited sampling, about 200 patients) maybe only 1/5 patients either make the lifestyle changes recommended or take their medications properly. Most people seem to not give a *****, even if they are in poor health (which is probably why they are in poor health in the first place). - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7Pretending to be a doctor that leads to a medical outcome is a crime in the US. Do you have a license to practice?
- ConfusedONE, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5No C's as of yet. But I still post on Digg.
- igm07, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5I've seen a bunch of comments to the effect of: "Doctors are just highly trained people of average intelligence. Of course they're going to make mistakes."
Average intelligence? Have you been to a Wal-Mart checkout lately? What are you basing this "average" on? Average is an IQ of 100. I'd put the average of my colleagues at about 130: no geniuses, but no slouches either. It's not their intelligence that's the problem.
And the article does not refer only to mistakes. It talks about iatrogenic causes. Of the 225,000 deaths cited in the article, 86,000 are due to infections in hospitals, and 106,000 are due to negative effects of drugs.
Frequently, treatments for one disease have unintended effects. Many drugs are prescribed to relieve the unwanted effects of other therapies. The treatment of cancer may result in a crippling of the immune system and death from an infection, not cancer. Surgery to repair a hip fracture may result in protracted immobility, and a fatal blood clot to the lung.
There are a million ways that treatments for serious disorders can kill people. Clearly, the lesson is to try to reduce and eliminate that risk, to find alternate treatment approaches that are safer, and to avoid the temptation to medicalize disorders that shouldn't be (erectile dysfunction, menopause, male pattern baldness, obesity).
Physicians are all too willing to whip out a prescription pad to get demanding patients and their pseudo-illnesses out of their clinic. - Aphelion27, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Add to that the highly concerned high maintenance mother who wants "something" for my childs cold. No matter how many times she is told that it is caused by a virus and antibiotics won't work. Eventually it is just easter to write the script for amox ($4.00 at walmart) than spend another 10 minutes with her reassuring.
Also, The CYA medicine that has to be practiced thanks to J.D's. If some has an adverse outcome from some highly rare disease in the United States (like Rabies from a domestic dog bite) then he gets sued. Better to treat than use your brain and experience. - 21chrisp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4"the origin of much of the problem is in the pharmaceutical industry, bad hospitals, and bad nursing."
I have friends/family that are nurses and doctors. They all say the staff are overworked, particularly in hospitals. This means mistakes tend to happen much more often than in the past and patients are often left lying in a critical state for far too long. Much of the blame should rest on those running the hospitals. Efficiency is valued over human life and patient care. Many people could be saved if they just had better care! Even my own ventures into hospitals for minor xrays/scans have been filled with delirious patients getting out of their bed to walk around and babble nonsense and no one's around to help! Entire hallways are completely void of any staff. - skyfire1, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6In other news, doctors are not infallible and have made mistakes in the past.
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