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Research topics on medical errors
Medical errors examples
Research topics on medical errors
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Josie King was eighteen months old when she was admitted to John Hopkins Hospital. She came in with serve burns all over her body, she got these Burns from scorching water. Ten days after she was admitted in the pediatric intensive care unit at Hopkins, the doctors saw that her burns were healing faster than they suspected, so she was going to be released soon. Then everything fell apart, Josie started wanting to drink water constantly, she was getting dehydrated. Sorrel King, Josie’s father, told the hospital staff what was going on with his daughter. They consulted with the parents to put her back on fluids, and keep her overnight. One of the doctors however, ordered a high dose of narcotic, even thought it was the right approach, without …show more content…
A medical error is not reasonably expected result of normal course of action, unsafe practice of medicine, or an outcome that was not anticipated. Medical errors can happen everywhere in the hospital, here are some examples; a patient on a low-salt diet given a high salt meal, treating the wrong patient, surgical equipment, being left inside the body during surgery, and even wrong site surgery. Errors also happen when doctors and their patients have problems communicating. For example, a recent study supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) found that doctors often do not do enough to help their patients make informed decisions (Saintsing 354). Uninvolved and uninformed patients are less likely to accept the doctor 's choice of treatment and less likely to do what they need to do to make the treatment work (Saintsing 356,357). Errors are all too frequent in medicine, Building a Safer Health System estimated that as many as 98,000 deaths, due to a medical error, occurs in the United States (Laure 770).
The emotion aspect of an error is colossal. The families of the patient struggle with recovery. When the error happens, relatives often guilt themselves for not keeping close watch on their loved ones. In one case, the family of a man with drepanocytosis (sickle cell anemia), a blood disorder, repeatedly warned health care workers to not administer disambiguation, which
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She struggled to come back into serious terms, she blamed herself for everything that happened to her brother. Even when patients’ suspected mistakes mere being made, many feared that confronting medical staff, this might lead to farther injury (Thomas 769). The patients didn’t want to get treated wrong, their life was on the line. Even when the patient is told by the doctor an error happened, it effects them not only physically, but emotionally. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), many patients develop fears after being told an error occurred (Langreth 76). They wouldn’t step foot in the hospital, or any other medical related building. This led to the patient developing nosocomephobia, the fear of hospitals.
The involved physicians struggle with the aftermath also. The emotional impact of a medical error not only effects the families and friends, it effected the staff that helped that patient. Physicians and others in healthcare have learned to value medical errors. When a medical error happens the staff could develop, sleeping complications, anxiety about future errors, they lose confidence (Schwappach 840). The specialty of the physicians effected are various. They blame themselves even though it could have been another
The medical values learned in chapter 11 are, emotional detachment, professional socialization, clinical experience, mastering uncertainty, mechanistic model, intervention, and emphasis on acute and rare illnesses. The three that I mainly care about are, emotional detachment, mastering uncertainty, and clinical experience. Emotional detachment is a very important medical value because this can strongly affect not only the patient but the doctor as well. The doctor is supposed to sustain emotional detachment from patients. (Weitz 276). A doctor should try and keep their distance because their emotion can strongly affect the patient. How a doctor reacts or approaches a situation will show how they are with emotional detachment. Mastering
Almost doctors and physicians in the world have worked at a hospital, so they must know many patients’ circumstances. They have to do many medical treatments when the patients come to the emergency room. It looks like horror films with many torture scenes, and the patients have to pay for their pains. The doctors have to give the decisions for every circumstance, so they are very stressful. They just want to die instead of suffering those medical treatments. In that time, the patients’ family just believes in the doctors and tells them to do whatever they can, but the doctors just do something that 's possible. Almost patients have died after that expensive medical treatments, but the doctors still do those medical procedures. That doctors did not have enough confidence to tell the truth to the patients’ families. Other doctors have more confidence, so they explain the health condition to the patients’ families. One time, the author could not save his patient, and the patient had found another doctor to help her. That doctor decided to cut her legs, but the patient still died in fourteen days
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported in 1999 that between 44,000 and 98,000 people die each year in the United States due to a preventable medical error. A report written by the National Quality Forum (NQF) found that over a decade after the IOM report the prevalence of medical errors remains very high (2010). In fact a study done by the Hearst Corporation found that the number of deaths due to medical error and post surgical infections has increased since the IOM first highlighted the problem and recommended actions to reduce the number of events (Dyess, 2009).
In the essay “When Doctors Make Mistakes” written by Atul Gawande, he writes a first-hand account of mistakes made by himself and his colleagues. The essay is divided into five parts, each named to the narrative and emotions of the story he would tell. In each story he tells, he uses such vivid language that we as readers feel as if we are one of his colleagues. Each section has its own importance to the whole point he was trying to get across, ““All doctors make terrible mistakes” (657).
Although I respect and trust nurses and doctors, I always carefully observe what is being done with myself or my family members. After watching Josie’s story and being in the process of becoming a medical assistant, I feel this story has given me an initiative to ensure patients and their families are kept safe. The generation we live in is technological, there are many resources for patients and families to utilize to educate themselves when it comes to medical conditions. Some people like to self-diagnose and it makes it harder for doctors and healthcare workers to work with those patients. This is when communication and active listening becomes especially important to work through what is fact and what is misplaced
Dr. Gawande emphasizes the value of making mistakes, and how it is a core component of his daily life as a physician. His mistakes are dependent on the “good choices or bad choices” he makes, and regardless of the result that occurs, he learns more about himself as a physician, and more about his connection with patients (215). Critic Joan Smith of The Guardian newspaper mentions that although his various stories about “terrifying” mistakes that doctors make induce fear and a sense of squeamishness within the reader, it is the “emphasis that human beings are not machines” that is “oddly reassuring” (Smith). For example, in the essay, “When Doctors Make Mistakes”, Gawande is standing over his patient Louise Williams, viewing her “lips blue, her throat swollen, bloody, and suddenly closed” (73).
Medical error occurs more than most people realize and when a doctor is found negligent the patient has the right to sue for compensation of their losses. Debates and issues arise when malpractice lawsuits are claimed. If a patient is filing for a medical malpractice case, the l...
In “When Doctors Make Mistakes,” Atul Gawande flatly states that “all doctors make terrible mistakes” (657). In doing so he explains certain failures and errors that doctors commit that led to situations that in danger patients. Gawande first mentions a study that found “…nearly
Milani, Oleck and Lavie reported that Medical errors are the eighth leading cause of death in the hospitals. About 44,000 to 98,000 people die each year from adverse effects from medication errors, 1 million annually die in
Hospital medical errors can involve medicines (e.g., wrong drug, wrong dose, bad combination), an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis, equipment malfunction, surgical mistakes, or laboratory errors. High medical error rates with serious consequences occurs in intensive care units, operating rooms, and emergency departments; but, serious errors that harmed patients may have prevented or minimized. Understand the nature of the error
...nsidering what had happened makes it hard for the doctors to help her upon her lack of honesty and character.
“When Doctors Make Mistakes” narrates an event where the author Atul Gawande, a doctor, made a mistake that cost a women her life. He relates that it is hard to talk about the mistakes that occurred with the patient's family lest it be brought up in court. In that instance the family and doctor are either wrong or right, there is no middle ground in a “black-and-white mortality case”(658). Even the most educated doctors make simple mistakes that hold immense consequences but can only speak about them with fellow doctors during a Morbidity and Mortality Conference.
The health care is extremely important to society because without health care it would not be possible for individuals to remain healthy. The health care administers care, treats, and diagnoses millions of individual’s everyday from newborn to fatal illness patients. The health care consists of hospitals, outpatient care, doctors, employees, and nurses. Within the health care there are always changes occurring because of advance technology and without advance technology the health care would not be as successful as it is today. Technology has played a big role in the health care and will continue in the coming years with new methods and procedures of diagnosis and treatment to help safe lives of the American people. However, with plenty of advance technology the health care still manages to make an excessive amount of medical errors. Health care organizations face many issues and these issues have a negative impact on the health care system. There are different ways medical errors can occur within the health care. Medical errors are mistakes that are made by health care providers with no intention of harming patients. These errors rang from communication error, surgical error, manufacture error, diagnostic error, and wrong medication error. There are hundreds of thousands of patients that die every year due to medical error. With medical errors on the rise it has caused the United States to be the third leading cause of death. (Allen.M, 2013) Throughout the United States there are many issues the he...
Most medical errors come from human errors. Before defining medical error, we should have a good understanding of human error. As a human in our everyday life we are prone to make mistakes such as using ointment...
Doctors are not miracle workers, they can do some pretty impressive stuff, but in the end they are still struggling humans that trip on the sidewalk and burn their toast. They are not perfect, and their work is not either. Doctors always have and always will make mistakes, which is a discomforting intimidating stressful fact for patients. After all, the entire reason they are going to the doctor is because they are not ready to die, so having a doctor that may kill them just feels a little counterproductive. But it is a fact that must be accepted, doctors make mistakes, it is a fact of life.