The catastrophic cost of professional negligence

Heart disease and cancer are the first and second leading causes of death in the United States, according to the latest statistics.

Care to guess what comes in a close third?

That would be errors made by healthcare providers, which account for about a half million deaths a year, says a top expert.

I want to make sure you hear that again. Over 500,000 people a year die from medical mistakes.

Medical author Joe Graedon, who’s also a pharmacy professor, calls such errors “the equivalent of three jumbo jets crashing every day of the year and killing everyone aboard.”

In fact, Graedon and his wife Terry, who co-host a public radio program called The People’s Pharmacy, have just come out with a new book on the subject. It’s called Top Screwups Doctors Make—and How to Avoid Them.

But with Graedon, it’s personal. His own mother died as the result of such an error, committed by a nurse.

As he points out, “No one is counting the bodies. There is no outrage, no plan to change a system that allows too many to die unnecessarily. The medical profession seems largely immune to the consequences of its errors.”

And the most common one, he says, is a wrong diagnosis.

It’s most often the result of doctors not wanting to take time to consider alternative explanations for symptoms. Patient overload and an unwillingness to seek help from other doctors are also contributing factors.

All of which is why it’s so important for you to “take charge” if you or a loved one is ill.

Because asking the right question could be the only thing that can save your life — or theirs.

Sources:
“Doctor errors kill 500,000 Americans a year” Lynn Allison, August 26, 2014, Newsmax health, newsmaxhealth.com