SOME COMMON MISTAKES BY DOCTORS
Patient-Doctor relationship is based on sacred trust. No one would like to accept any mistake from a medical Doctor. An article in India Today magazine dated Feb 16, 09 discusses about such mistakes, some of which are reported, and some get unreported. These complaints may be in the category of gross negligence, error of judgement, accident, recklessness etc. This article lists ten most common mistakes made in India, and remedial actions for them. First is leaving some surgical or other item inside the body of the patient, especially during emergency surgery or change in procedure. Second is disfiguring of the patient’s face. Third is doing surgery on, or removing the wrong part of the body, or wrong blood transfusion. Fourth is giving inadequate anesthesia, making the patients wake up and feel severe pain during the operations. Fifth is wastage of crucial time at the hospital, and not providing the required care and attention, tests and treatment, immediately after arrival of the patient to the hospital. Sixth is prescribing, using, overusing and misusing of unnecessary drugs, use of banned and untested drugs. Seventh is prescribing of many tests for diagnosis, some of which are complex, costly, unnecessary and more invasive. Eighth is the post-operative infection in the hospitals, to the extent of 10-25%, some of which can be prevented. Ninth is problems created due to illegible prescriptions, sometimes our getting a similar sounding but wrong drug. Tenth is daily use of relief medicines e.g. anti-anxiety medicines, pain killers etc. The cure can become cause of some problem. For each of these ten mistakes, the writer prescribes corrective actions.