Medical Mistakes

If you ask many people in the world today "Are you afraid to go to the doctor?" many will most likely reply yes. Many are afraid of finding out bad news such as you have AIDS, or you have Cancer. Every year many patients are hurt by medical mistakes than hospitals ever acknowledge. The Institute of Medicine or IOM confirms what medical experts have long known: Medical errors kill more people every year than AIDS, breast cancer, or car crashes. The institute is trying to get the hospitals to prevent future errors, by encouraging the doctors to admit their mistakes. Doctors are scared to admit if they have misdiagnosed a patient because they fear that the patients will file malpractice suits, and malpractice insurers will drop the hospital from coverage. In addition to this medical experts say the individual doctors and nurses who are honest with their patient face the prospect of being ostracized by their colleagues or fired. It is also said that punishing the person, who has done something wrong, turns out not to be very effective at preventing someone else from doing the same thing later.

I feel that, no matter what the issue is, the doctor or nurse should tell the patient or patients if they have made a mistake so that the patient can be aware of this issue. It should not be about getting picked on by their colleagues or fired, because their job should be worth more than anything to them rather than listening to what others have to say.