- Nov 29, 2008
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It'd be e nice to know before getting care if they did more harm than good to twenty or more patients.I would like to speak from the perspective of doctors, since I am one.
Since we are human, we make mistakes. However, since we are dealing with lives and peoples health, we do our absolute best to minimize them.
It is hard to draw the line between evaluating a patient and diagnosing someone with a benign condition or illness, and going on a multimillion dollar fishing expedition to look for something that could be deadly but is unlikely to exist. Sometimes you have to play the percentages and go with the most likely scenario.
For example, yesterday, I saw an 11 year old girl with mild cold-like symptoms and fatigue with fevers off and on for a month. She had a virus, unquestionably. The mom seemed very concerned and wanted some tests. I ordered blood counts, but I didn't see the point of getting a chest xray, blood cultures, urine cultures, or start a workup for lymphoma or leukemia or something else bad. And had I given her antibiotics, and she hadn't improved (because antibiotics don't treat viruses), I would have been asked for another round of antibiotics, or a different antibiotic.
I had to make a call. Maybe she does have a tumor or something. Or a whopping pneumonia. But from my experience and what the patient looked like, the chances were nil.
The area of medicine that I do admit needs constant improvement is medication errors, especially in hospitals. Most of the time it is the wrong medicine or wrong dose that is given, and unusually these errors are due to the multiple steps that are needed to give the medicine: physician has to order it, the order has to be read and placed into the computer, the pharmacy has to fill it, the nurse has to give it. There are so many steps were a simple error, like a moved decimal place, can have dire consequences. As medical professionals, and hospitals, we are very aware of this and are doing everthing that we can to prevent future occurances.
I just wanted to jump in and say my peace. Thanks for listening.
I know a very good doc that was run outta state on a rail because an operating nurse forgot to count the sponges before he sewed the patient back up. Docs depend on nurses and don't always count their own sponges before sewing the patient back up. Sad affair but of course I'd like to know about it so I could make an informed decision before I went to that hospital or used that facility if the need arises.