Preview

Preventing Mistakes In The Medical Field

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1065 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Preventing Mistakes In The Medical Field
In this era many doctors fail to tell their medical mistakes due to lawsuits. Many of the doctors errors are not intentional, they happen from failure to get all correct information. Everyone is human, mistakes happen.There are many ways to prevent these mistakes from happening, it is just the people need to put in the effort in doing so. One way for doctors to prevent mistakes is communication because without the correct information and needed discussions, mistakes will happen. Doctors should be able to admit their mistakes because it will help prevent future medical mistakes.
Errors can happen if there is miscommunication between patient and doctor. There was a point made by Dr. Goldman, that doctors make errors no matter how many years
…show more content…
For example, allergies, medical issues, past and recent surgeries, and current medication. Patients need to tell the doctor everything, doctors do not know everything about the patient's life. For example, If the patient leaves out that they have a pacemaker and later needed to be resuscitated with AED defibrillator because they go into cardiac arrest. That is why it is really important to discuss these things with the doctor to be provided with the best care.
It is acceptable for doctors to speak out about their mistakes. Doing so helps future doctors and nurses from making those mistakes. It also makes current and future doctors to be more aware of the medical errors that could be made. Eighty percent of doctors misdiagnosis is from lack of communication between doctor and patient. Mistakes can be from a misdiagnosis to an error in the operation room. Doctors should not be afraid of admitting they were wrong or have made a mistake. If the doctor is unsure of their diagnosis of the patient, they can always get a second opinion from another
…show more content…
It is the leading cause of death in the country. These preventable medical mistakes costs the united state tens of billions of dollars a year alone. One-half of one percent of all health care costs are from medical lawsuits. These reason alone shows medical errors need to be fixed.
Some medical errors occur when the doctor or nurse are sleep deprived. Many doctors and nurses work 16 hours a day, three days in a row. Also there are doctors and nurses working the night shift the majority of the week. When there is sleep deprivation, mistakes can easily happen unintentionally. Ways to correct this is by limiting the hours doctors and nurses can work a day and to make sure doctors are not exhausting themselves from all the work they have to provide for patients.
It is more ethical to own up to your mistakes then to deny it. The typical errors that occur is the delivering of treatment, surgery on the wrong side, wrong dosage of medication, delays of diagnosis, and failure to give antibiotics to prevent infection. Sometimes doctors diagnose a patient with a disease that does not exist and starts to treat them. Errors are even made from interpreting a X-ray incorrectly. These medical errors alone can be fixed dramatically. Doctors and nurses need to realize the errors a correct them, doing so can save someone's

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    As a nursing student, I am particularly glad that I was exposed to the concept of medical errors this early on in my training so I can actively define my role in preventing them. The documentary reminded me that I am entering a profession where my actions have real and significant consequences. A sloppy or incomplete performance in medicine is unacceptable and I must find the best way to become as competent as possible. I was immediately encouraged to become a better student in the classroom, to work harder and retain necessary knowledge that I know may be of great consequence one day. Additionally, since my skills have not yet been fully established, I can take certain measures to ensure that bad and perhaps dangerous habits which can lead to errors, do not develop.…

    • 452 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The outcome of the extra surgery that was performed on Mrs. Abelson posed negative outcomes that could have increased the risks for a heart attack, internal bleeding, infection, and risk of heart attack. The hospital, the primary physician, the surgical physicians, and the surgical nurses were sued for malpractice. The settlement was $2 million. Medical errors are now the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. Medical errors can occur in almost any healthcare setting, including hospitals, clinics, surgery centers, and medical offices (Carrie, 2018). The most common types of medical errors are missed or delayed diagnosis, medication errors, delay in treatment, infections, inadequate follow-up after treatment, inadequate monitoring after a procedure, technical medical errors, and surgical errors (Carrie, 2018).…

    • 1020 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This article is about comprehending factors that influence repercussions for talking about and even reporting medical errors is still an important area of concern. The article describes a study that looked at many factors, including organization, clinician, and leadership demographics. I anticipate on using this source to describe how underreporting is a result of repercussions by medical workers, and the lack of importance of a medical error reporting system.…

    • 295 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mistakes in medicine are hard to think of because at the end of the day, there are real people…

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Coms 327 thought essay

    • 341 Words
    • 1 Page

    An example of this was when a doctor told me that my horse would not survive after having suffered from a severe injury. It is common sense to trust doctors and most people expect that everything that they say will be the ultimate truth. However according to Lyotard, communication is best conceived as a ‘’language game’’ and I believe that this is true when discussing the trustworthiness of doctors. In most cases, people will listen to what their doctor is saying without a question and you are therefore following the rules in the language game. Immediately, when…

    • 341 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    communication methods for disclosing errors to patients, the level of satisfaction that Mr. J had…

    • 1289 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Experts warn that many doctors fail to include crucial information about treatments with their patients (Feinmann). This issue is extremely underplayed considering the potentially grave consequences miscommunication can cause in the medical industry. Informed Consent forms are especially crucial in the terms of many procedures, trials, and in prescribing medication. While these errors may seem harmless, they can be a means of life or death of a patient. Without a proper system of informing patients and having proper information retention strategies, avoidable medical miscommunications will continue to occur.…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Both the physician and the patient should be very clear on what they say to one another is very important. Sometimes the patient can be unclear, uncertain or restricted information that is provided regarding one’s symptoms and experiences from the past, the diagnosis the physician’s gives may be inaccurate, leading to mistreatment of the condition. In order to obtain effective communication in the health care, one needs to learn how to speak with patients, families, care givers, consultants, and referring physicians. It is important to the care of the patient that the doctor develops a plan to communicate with anyone who plays a role in the patient’s well-being. Talking one-on-one with the patient is also very important, not only with the first encounter, also through the treatment and care phases. Doctors, nurses, technicians, and counselors all should communicate with each other to help cut down on…

    • 767 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    First of all many people visit a doctor and they trust their doctors to do what is optimal for their patients, but when a doctor a dishonest to a patient and misinformed them then that is just morally wrong. As this would mean that we as the patients can not trust our doctors to keep us informed, and that is an issue as we allow our doctors to cure us.…

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    One excuse that a physician may use to try to justify being dishonest to a patient is that the patient will not comprehend what the physician is telling them because it is too technical and complex. An example of such a situation may be a patient being diagnosed with a lymphoma. The physician may fear that the patient will not understand complicated terms like lymphocytes…

    • 472 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Doctors make mistakes in a patient’s medical care. Doctors are not perfect because they’re human and, as a result, they misdiagnose patients. For example, a woman was diagnosed with cancer, then she decided to take a lethal dose of painkillers which led to her death. However, during her autopsy the medical examiner found she never had cancer (St. Clair). In a study by John Hopkins Medicine more than 250,000 Americans die each year due to medical errors (Allen and Pierce). Doctors make mistakes all the time and this results in patients dying without being diagnosed with a terminally ill illness.…

    • 729 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Professional honesty is about the physician knowing the limits of his or her own competence and when to refer to someone else for help. There is nothing shameful about not knowing the solution to a medical problem. It is dangerous to fake competence or pretend to know things. A statement by the Medical Council, Disclosure of harm, acknowledges that all medical treatment carries risk and encourages physicians to disclose where a patient has been harmed as the result of their medical care. The Council quotes research that indicates a patient is more likely to complain if a physician fails to disclose harm to the patient, or if the disclosure is not done in an open and honest manner (Corkill,…

    • 120 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Health Care Apology

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages

    It restores some damage done and restores the trust between the health provider and the patient. We need to do what is right for the patient and apology of adverse events is part of doing the right thing. Institutions should have positive experiences with policies that demand disclosing and apologizing for medical errors. A sincere apology reduces the suffering of both clinicians and patient and their family (Robbennolt, J. K. 2009).…

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Should medical misdiagnosis be a crime? In my opinion, it depends on the circumstances involved. There are several factors that we should keep in mind when we are talking about medical misdiagnosis. Some wrong medical diagnosis is caused simply by human error. This inadvertently means doing other than what should have been done. Basically what human error means is it is a mistake. So are doctors perfect? No because they are human just like me and you. Granted they go to intensive schooling and they are required to know certain things, but unfortunately no human being is perfect. So do we punish doctors because of a mistake? Certainly we could reprimand them, but charging them with a crime for a mistake is a little harsh in my opinion.…

    • 397 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the medical realm the truth should be told, although in the past it has been covered up. Medical experiments frequently avoid telling the truth. For example in the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment in Alabama, 399 black men were told they were being treated for “bad blood” when in actuality they were in the late stages of Syphilis. By the end of the experiment 128 men died from syphilis, but if the doctors informed the subjects of the infection many lives could have been spared. Just like the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment, in other occasions the truth should be told in the medical world. For instance, in Crisis Pregnancy Centers all over the United States also known as CPC’s pregnant women are told claims by the uneducated staff members to have them refrain from having an abortion because they believe abortion is wrong. One woman, Katy Stag went to three CPC’s in Ohio that told her “There is more risk in having an abortion than carrying a baby full term” which is false; studies show that a woman who carries their baby full term are fourteen times more likely to die. This exemplifies that in the medical world that lies should not be told. Therefore, the truth should be told, especially in regard to anything medical.…

    • 901 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays