Let’s Stop Making Excuses For Egregious Medical Errors

To save the life of a child, a zoo sacrifices a prized, endangered gorilla. In exchange for one nearsighted Israeli soldier captured in Gaza, Israel released 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. (This example from the Middle East may not be surprising. In Judaism, it is commanded that “to save a life is as if one saved the world.”) And there are other examples of extreme bravery to save one life. That’s how much societies value the life of each human being. So how, then, do we explain our national acceptance of approximately 251,000 preventable deaths each year from medical error (according to a recent BMJ study)? We can watch Saving Private Ryan and cheer the heroics of our armed forces as they rescue the remaining son of a family who suffered horrendous battlefield casualties during World War II. But there is less sustained effort to do something about the hundreds of thousands of people who entrust their lives to medical facilities and suffer or die—not from their illness, accident, or surgery—but because someone did not observe sanitary precautions, or was careless in stocking the crash cart, marking a surgical site, delivering the right medications, or using a safety checklist. Somehow, we accept excuses about this tremendous casualty toll. The nation is unforgiving when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) loses one of its astronauts—a reflection of our national commitment to preserving life. But we can’t accept or process the extent of death b...
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