When Doctors Make Mistakes

Part One

- Teenage stabbing victim in operating room, author has to leave t tend to another patient
- He has only ever done this procedure (tracheotomy) on a goat for practice
- Calls in Dr. Ball, the attending physician and more experienced surgeon
- Defines the difference between a mistake and negligence
- "All doctors make mistakes" (44).

Part Two

- Mistakes are not always the doctors fault, there are other factors
- All doctors have horror stories
- Author uses statistics for a logical argument
- "The important question isn't how to keep a bad physician from harming patients, it's how to keep good physicians from harming patients."

Part Three (My Part)

- Doctors are required to go to weekly or monthly meetings to discuss errors in the hospital
- The author presents a partial list of cases form a typical week
- The author's failed tracheotomy case is presented at one of the meetings
- The attending physician takes the blame for the failed case no matter whose fault it is
- Ball, his attending, took the blame for his case and later explained what he should have done differently
- Arrogant doctors do not ever learn form their mistakes
- Humans always make errors, that's why M&M meetings exist
- thing will always go wrong because of multiple errors not one single error
- "And yet I knew that a surgeon can take feelings to far. It is one thing to be aware of one's limitations. It is another to be plagued by self-doubt."

Part Four

-Doctors have checklist before surgeries like pilots
- Advocating for simulations with doctors
- experts need to follow by formalities

Part Five

-Routine Gal Bladder surgery case is recalled
- 10-25% of patients die from complications

(The New Yorker, February 1,1999)