Medical Errors

I have worked in the medical field for a very long time. There are some who will and some who won't. Reasoning is that if a patient went to another doctor, it is quite easily sometimes to determine pathology and determine an error. Due to high rise in Medical malpractice here in the US, it is to the doctors benefit to inform the patient and try and work around the error. I have witnessed with my own eyes when a doctor began surgery, not once but several times on the wrong foot, while the patient was under anesthesia. The majority made up excuses which sadly the patient excepted to cover up their mistake. There was one doctor who tried to cover up the mistake but unfortunately he was not a great bedside mannered doctor and the patient went to another doctor where pulling prior x-rays, the patient won a law suit against the doctors malpractice insurance. I would say that it is human nature, sometimes to commit mistakes, almost like anything else some will tell and some will not, it depends on the doctors subconscious like all humans.

Nope! Definitely not. Judging you by your profile picture, I think you're a doctor. No offense doc, but you've studied your proffession for (I'm not sure) 5-10 yrs? Then one day you commit a medical error and swallow your pride and dignity as a licensed doctor by saying "ooops! I'm sorry I was wrong." You are one in a million if you can do that. :)

Hi Scapula. I honestly hope they do. It would be a shame if a patient went to another doctor for a second opinion who was able to track down the error of the first attending doctor. When this happens, there would already have been complications which would worsen the patient's condition. The problem with patients is that they expect their doctor to be correct all the time and they have high hopes on their doctors. Most of the time, doctors would err on the final diagnosis of the patient; and we all know that wrong diagnosis equals wrong treatment. I am a medical technologist and to be honest with you, i hope some doctors listen to us as well because apart from physical symptoms, we medical technologists have a say to the condition. We are not saying that we are any better, we just hope that there would be a collaboration as we are all in this together.

You can ask doctor near your house. I hope they were honest about people medication and wish they could tell people what the symptoms were ? I think the volume is quite small related to doctor's honesty. I knew as well that there were ethic of the doctors profession, one of them tells that that they are not allowed to share his person under treatment to the third party. I hope that doctors can be honest about telling a medical error, but I think they won't tell otherwise they are sued by laws and people will not keep quite about it.

Doctors do commit error, they are human beings too, so they should admit; but unfortunately they don't; i know several cases from newspaper and TV news, it is just their carelessness, they forget cloth, scissors inside patients' stomach, operate on left leg instead of right, many doctors in govt hospital demand money from the patient on operation table.. Thank you so much for sharing Happy posting, cheers. Kalyani

It is my understanding if they don't disclose a medical error they can be sued...of course there are various interpretations as to what a medical error is so that would complicte the issue.