Do Doctors Make Mistakes People?

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Doctors Are Human Too
“Are doctors who make mistakes villains? No, because then we all are.”
-Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, 2007
Atul Gawande suggests that people should not be frowned upon for making mistakes, including doctors. Mistakes are inevitable in any field of study. Doctors have an extremely difficult job; therefore, when they make mistakes, it does not mean they are incompetent or lazy, it simply means they’re human. Doctors should not be castigated for their mistakes, rather they should be welcomed to share them. The mistakes that doctors make cannot be deterred; however, the machines that they use and the policies that are enforced in medical settings can be revised in order to reduce the amount of mistakes …show more content…

Instead of criticizing the doctors who make mistakes, an environment should be made where the doctor feels comfortable enough to share his or her mistakes and he or she, together with his or her coworkers, should devise a plan to improve. As Brian Goldman says, “...backups that make it easier to detect those mistakes that humans inevitably make and also fosters in a loving, supportive way, places where everybody who is observing in the health care system can actually point out things that could be potential mistakes and is rewarded for doing so, and especially people like me, when we do make mistakes, we're rewarded for coming clean” (Goldman). Doctors should not be severely punished for the mistakes they make. Rather than focusing on the negative outcome of the doctor’s mistake, it is important to focus on preventing that specific mistake from happening again. Updating technology and procedures is a key role in reducing the repetition of mistakes. Instead of ostracizing the doctors who make mistakes, an environment should be created in which the doctors are free to voice their mistakes without severe punishment in order to move forward with an advanced and updated way of doing

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