They do say PRACTICING doctor because they are always practicing, I am not a doctor advocate at all but they do make mistakes because they are human just because they went to all the schooling and swore to do no harm, there are errors in the medical field unintentional.
I never knew that, that phrase came from that it is interesting that is the origin of the quote

Some doctors got A's in med school, and others got D's but still passed by the skin of their A$$! I have fired doctors in the past for being less that efficient. Best to All! Timmy :)

There's some great docs working, and too many patients for too little pay. And I am an advocate for the concientious and talented ones.

There are some, however, who deserve to thrown out of the profession with extreme prejudice. I've worked in the health care field. I've witnessed drunks, stoners, perverts, sadists, medicare and insurance defrauders, and even good natured likeable people who had no business in the profession.

Yes, they sometimes do bury their mistakes.

-Snake

There are mediocre mechanic's, nurses, lawyer's, etc... There are good people in every profession and really bad ones too, but when a person has a profession were life and death decisions are made each and every day, and were one mistake can kill an innocent person, then that profession and the professional's in it should be policed and held to a higher standard than everybody else. An error by a mechanic could kill a person, but not likely, an error by a surgeon could bring a young person to a premature death and that is beyond crazy!

Oh Boy do I have an opening line for my Neuro...Thank you and HUGE HUGS, Eva

Yes i agree with the above statements but doctors even the good/great ones makes mistakes, thus the quote "to ERR is human"

It is very sad that when a good person dies because of a mistake a doctor makes, but i cant say that just because they are doctors they have to be perfect and that they never make a mistake because that is not realistic, even if a great doctor made one mistake and then fired that person is still dead it happens everyday in this world. The only other alternative would be there would be no doctors because nobody is immune to making a mistake at their job, they could be a doctor for 20 years and one day make a mistake and someone is hurt, they didnt mean it but it happen

I think we were just discussing where the quote "to ERR is human" and why it became to be. I think it is saying that humans makes mistakes, everyone human does weather they are a doctor or a bus boy nobody can be perfect.

manny,

Of course humans are going to make mistakes, and some damned unfortunate ones. It is the careless ones that don't fall into this category. And believe me, if a doc brings enough buisness to a hospital, they are virtually fireproof.

Let me give you a couple of examples of what I have witnessed;

Let's call the patient "John". I was one of the nurses on an open heart procedure. When the procedure was done, the patient started to "buck" at the tube, in other words, began to regain consciousness. The surgeon decided to be a wise guy, leaned close to his ear, and said "John...John... You're in Hell". Really high comedy. Tell me there was no chance of "John" hearing or remembering that.

Another hospital, another time, I worked Cath Lab and Open Heart. We called in a surgeon due to a blocked artery. Here's the conversation:

Surgeon: "Does he smoke?"

Cardiologist: "About a pack a day."

Surgeon: "F*ck him".

The surgeon walked out. Nothing was done about it.

This is the difference between human "erring" and preventable patient injuries.

-Snake

F*ck that surgeon, unacceptable!

(And no I don't smoke. Yuck!)

Yes 100% those types of doctors need to be better/fired, there wasnt anything funny about what they did and those were not mistakes at all those were deliberate acts.
I dont mean those doctors i mean the ones that are caring and take their job with pride they no matter how good they are and how much they studied and got all A's, they will make a mistake from time to time hopefully nothing big but the chances are if they treat enough people it can be, it is just a part of life

And i know you are saying, she says that wait till it is one of her loved ones and she will sing a different tune and you are probably right, my heart comes before my logic in alot of cases

I'm gonna have to jump in on this post as well. I think some of the issues are related to the selection criterion for medical schools. Strong references play a disproportional part of getting accepted to most medical schools. Grades, mathematical skills like in chemistry and physics play are part too. Neither have much to do with what it takes to be a good doctor. I don't know about now but 25-30 years ago, when I went to PA school, race played a big factor as well. Medical schools, PA schools, and other health care providers were crying to conform with equality standards. Criterion to get in were lowered a lot to achieve conformity.

One of the places I worked was with a thoracic and vascular surgeon. One of the hospitals had several residency programs. My best guess is half were motivated by factors other than the art of medicine and patient care. That's not to say half were not competent, they just had motives different from the general public's conception of what makes a good doctor. Money, elitism, and comradeship with a elite group are some motives, especially the first one. Getting a hot honey to marry a below average looking male doctor was also a side benefit. Like this one girl I dated briefly said "it is just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor man" an she had the goods to marry a rich man, even a rich good looking man. She was an RN, and after our romance, she married a surgeon. She had the goods to pull it off. She became pregnant right away, almost to much right away. I always wondered about that.

Once I had a patient in ICU. At that time we had to do an arterial stick to get an blood gas for O2, etc. This resident was trying to do a femoral stick without much success. It was obvious she new little about the anatomy of the area as she kept probing and prodding with the needle trying to get an arterial return. The patient screaming, she kept prodding. It's not that hard. In the groin it is lateral to medial nerve, artery vein. You can even feel the artery pulsing. Her trouble was, and she freely admitted it, she didn't like to TOUCH people, especially sick people. She was from a family of doctors, married a surgeon and was just going with the flow. Last I heard, she was trying to get into an ophthalmology residency.

It is not just docs, PAs NPs or others that do procedures and prescribe that make mistakes. An RN on our surgical unit drew up and administered 12.5 mg of a digitalis drug from 13 single dose vials. She misread the order but should know this was not the right dose. Another hint was needing 13 vials to fill the syringe. The patient died. I never heard anything from this so I figure the mistake was buried with the patient. I saw another patient who came back from surgery with an N-G tube curled up inside his skull on x-ray. I'm not sure which surgeon did it but it wasn't mine. One way to check and see if an N-G tube is in the right place is to put a little air in it while listening over the stomach with a stethoscope. There was no free air inside the skull so they must not have checked the stomach. Maybe a good thing for this patient. Never did find out if the patient died or not. Probably not a good outcome either way, especially if a trial lawyer found out about it.

That is another squawk of mine. Not enough whistle blowers in the ranks for the big mistakes.

Did I make mistakes, yep, but is was not from lack of trying to do the right thing with the right knowledge to do it right. Sometimes, Murphy's law just won't let go. I did everything right once trying to put in a subclavian central line. Did everything right but still nicked a lung bleb on an elderly smoker. End results was a chest tub to re-inflate the lung. I had done well over 100 perfectly before I rand into this lady.

Enough for now. I could go on & on.

Bump