Four hundred thousand patients in the hospitals in the United States die every year because of medical errorsโfrom mistakes that could have been prevented. The BMJ article, published three days ago, says that โif the medical error was a disease, it would rank as the third leading cause of death in the US.โ Preventable medical …
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Medical Errors
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
She lay on the hospital bed- grateful to the doctors for having successfully fixed her broken bone. She had just been wheeled from the operating room to the ward and was looking forward to going home a day later. Her post-op orders read- nil by mouth for two hours and 2 litres of intravenous fluids. …
On Missing Malaria
Be parsimonious. My teachers taught me this principle at the bedside in my residency days. As far as possible, I was taught, doctors should try to explain all symptoms and signs by a single diagnosis. That was in 1980. Those were the days when physicians used their brains and stethoscopes to make a diagnosis. Doctors …