Doctors Also Make Mistakes - Research Paper Example

Number] Doctors Mistakes- Research Paper Introduction Jim Dwyer and Brian Goldman talk about medical mistakes that are made during doctors’ careers. Making errors is human nature and doctors are no exception. The major problem arises when these miscalculations are not accepted by them. Furthermore the problem, at times, becomes fatal. Everyone including the patients have a right to know these miscalculations. And this can only happen when they are provided with such an environment where medical errors can be discussed openly. This would lead to a lesser number of errors. It is said by the managers that whenever a human being is appointed to do some task, a blunder is going to happen. And that is for sure. Explanation & Examples In the article, Jim Dwyer registers the story about Rory Staunton, a 12 year old, who had an ambition to become a pilot just like Chelsea B. Sullenberger ‘Sully’. He lived with his small family in New York. He was an exceptional student and completely healthy until he skidded in his school gym while playing basketball and received a cut on his arm. This single cut proved to be fatal for him. He came back home and later started vomiting and was burning in fever. And only after two days, he was dead (Dwyer, 2012). The article briefly discusses how his severe condition was left unnoticed by his family physician and the doctors at NYU Langone Medical Center. In the TED speech, Brian Goldman talked about how accepting your mistake makes your future clear. He started off with his speech by comparing the success rates of a ballplayer and a physician. He mentioned stories from his personal experiences and encouraged other doctors to talk about where they went wrong. He furthers emphasizes that this would help the doctors learn and get better. As mentioned earlier, medical professionals do make mistakes everyday. And this is because of the fact that medicine requires skill and it is under an invariable risk for errors. There is a difference between a mistake and medical malpractice negligence. A mistake is more of a part of human nature and can not be denied whereas malpractice negligence means to not follow the certain set standards for doing a job. But in the medical world, mistakes have always been denied. Doctors are incapable of understanding that admitting such mistakes would lead to an improved solution for future problems. In some countries medical errors have been mandated to be recorded. And this only resulted in the acceptance of lower number of errors. This happened because these medical institutions were to be punished and as we can see punishment only led them off beam (Goldman, 2010). Coming back to the article, after viewing Rory’s lab reports Dr. Edmund said that he was producing white blood cells at an abnormal rate and which would have been resulted by a grave bacterial infection. The parents said they weren’t informed about it. And Rory’s family doctor had no idea about these tests. Here, both the doctors and the parents could be blamed for not communicating proper information to the other party. And without properly recording the results, the doctor recommended to take him home. These miscommunications and imprecise diagnosis led to Rory’s death (Dwyer, 2012). Goldman (2010) talks about how people perceive doctors. Once a doctor enters an operation theatre, the people want him to be perfect not caring about how he is going to manage it. And then there become two categories, one who make mistakes and the others who don’t. He further mentions a personal experience when he was assigned to the cardio patient. He made two mistakes, one of which was sending the patient home. While talking about the shame and guilt felt by a doctor or more specifically an emergency doctor, he said “how can I ever teach my colleagues what to avoid in the future if I can’t admit my own mistakes”. He further adds that if orthopedic cuts off a wrong leg of a patient, no body would be able to make eye contact with him for sometime. This happens only because of our system of denial of mistakes. A couple of years back, one of my aunts and her youngest daughter had problems with their respiratory area. The child was around four years old. Both of them were taken for a check up. But the doctor’s clinic was crowded with sick patients. Upon their turn they were given prescriptions for a cough syrup and a sedative. My aunt carefully followed the instructions and felt much better. But my cousin was sluggish. She would hardly wake up for the medicine or to have food. This worried my aunt and uncle. They took her back to the physician and came to know that the sedative had different instructions for adults and young children. This was the doctor’s fault and he apologized for the error. And my cousin was treated for overdose (Dwyer, 2012). This example and a lot of other such scenarios add respect to a doctor’s life. There is no one is this world who can be resistant to making mistakes, not even doctors. The mistakes that have been mentioned in the article and the video are just mere examples of human error. As we all know for a fact that human error can not be controlled but it can be improved. One always learns from his mistakes. In the whole process, the most difficult part is recognizing where you went wrong. This is a reason why patients are treated step-wise. All medical procedures have different levels of protection and it requires a series of mistakes at maximum levels to result in unfavourable outcomes (Goldman, 2010).There are some cases when different people are accountable for different levels of a procedure. In this case, it is hard to calculate who is how much responsible or punishable for the outcome. This can be rectified if all the people involved in the procedure honestly report their required duties and what they failed to spot. Brian Goldman repeatedly talks about the traditional medical culture of viewing medical errors. This culture should be shifted in to a more open culture where people can discuss their mistakes and come up with solutions to avoid them in the future. This will also help others learn from their mistakes and lives could be saved. In his article, Jim Dwyer mentions that upon contacting the physicians later, they refused from discussing the case. This type of attitude should not be a part of your personality especially when you’re a doctor and when you are responsible for taking care of another life. Conclusion The concise conclusion from this research paper is that although human nature is uncontrollable and not understandable at times, we can still improve the system and avoid further disappointments by discussing our problems and mistakes with colleagues. This would help in improving our health systems and diagnostic methods. It will also help us stay away from errors that later prove to be fatal as in the case of Rory Staunton and lady patient Goldman mentioned in his speech. Dwyer basically talks about how doctors make mistakes during a patient’s treatment and how there carelessness can lead to fatal outcomes. Whereas Goldman is very much insistent that like all other human beings doctors are absolutely capable of making mistakes. The only problem is our system which does not let us accept our blunders. Citations Dwyer, Jim. “An Infection, Unnoticed, turns Unstoppable”, The New York Times. Web. 11 July, 2012: A15. 16 February, 2013. Goldman, Brian. “Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that?” ‎. Web. ‎ TEDx Toronto 2010. Glenn Gould Studios, 30 September, 2010. Speech Read More