Doctors Make Mistakes

Doctors are humans. Humans make mistakes...however, when you excise the center of those two statements and are left with "doctors make mistakes," the vibe changes. Brian Goldman brings up a prominent point that even those who are not physicians, understand. We have this stigma in society that doctors are omniscient beings that know everything and are supposed to be flawless. It’s as if the granting of a medical degree is a badge that for some reason screams out, “I am perfect.” That stigma is far from the truth.  Mistakes are made every minute of every day in the health care system. Physicians are distracted, sleep deprived, miss symptoms, make a wrong diagnosis, and every day, people die. The passing of a patient, especially one’s first, is something no physician, or any human being for that matter, ever forgets. It’s like a heated metal bar searing a burn on one’s heart. Although with time the pain may alleviate, the scar is always visible, keratinized tissue that never goes away. With that scar, comes the heavy veil of guilt, self-inflicted punishment followed by a downward fall into the belief that one is incompetent or a quickly narrowed vision catalyzed by the belief that if by doing more, studying more, listening more, working more, one can forgo all future mishaps—and sometimes, these reactions are coupled. But even more taboo than making the mistakes, is actually talking about them. Let’s be honest—how many of us would immediately choose to undergo a surgical procedure from a physician who we knew had in the past, operated on the wrong side of the patient? How many of us would instill complete trust in a physician who we knew had made an incorrect diagnosis—not once, but several times? We place physicians on an idolized pedestal that they cannot get off of. There are culturally-built barriers that make it socially unacceptable for doctors to say, “I made a mistake that impacted another’s life, I feel terrible, and I need to talk about it.” 

For some reason, humanity is expected of physicians, but when it comes to the reverse perspective, physicians are not humans.

Humans make mistakes. We accept that.

Physicians make mistakes. Is this the same to swallow as the first?

We need to redefine medical culture. We need to abandon the idea of a perfect system with perfect health care professionals because change and growth cannot ensue in an environment where the two paths are either that of absolute success or absolute failure.

In a study reported by U.S. News in 2009, over 21% of medical students suffer from depression with a 6% prone to suicidal thoughts. The fact that these figures exist indicate a problem in our health care system. When we have the individuals taking care of us at the detriment to their own health, perhaps it’s an indication that maybe something needs to be re-evaluated.

Recent steps to address the topic: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp058183 

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Holly Tran, Staff Writer