The medical profession isn’t the only one that is self-protective. Police officers, for example, are well known for keeping silent about the misdeeds of fellow officers. The code, supposedly for better but often for worse, is that cops don’t tell on other cops.
Doctors and nurses engage in plenty of this kind of counter-productive self-protection concerning medical mistakes. According to a new book, the problem is widespread and pervasive in the delivery of medical care.
The book is called “Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won’t Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care.” The author is a surgeon at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore named Marty Makary.
The problems documented in the book are many. One is doctors who fail to keep up with best practices in their fields. This can lead to patients’ receiving substandard or even negligent care.
Another problem is doctors and hospitals who are motivated too much by the profit motive. The medicine they practice is attuned more to the financial bottom line than to patient care. As a result, patients who be given prescriptions or medical device implants that are not really in their best interests.
To some medical professionals, Makary seems like a traitor for writing his book. But he does not see it that way. Rather, he is trying to get doctors, nurses and other health professionals to find ways to reduce the frequency of medical errors.
The current statistics point to the need for the reform Makary advocates. One of every four patients who are hospitalized is hurt in some way by a medical mistake. And even if errors are not involved, far too much medical care is unnecessary; experts put that figure at 20 to 30 percent.
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Jay W. Dankner
JAY W. DANKNER was born, raised and educated in Brooklyn, New York. After graduation from law school in 1973, he joined the firm of the legendary, Harry H, Lipsig, under whose tutelage he learned the intricacies of civil litigation and trials. He tried and won his first case against General Motors in a case involving a design defect within weeks after his admission. Thereafter, he focused his attention on the emerging and developing field of law known as products liability litigation.
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