Toll Free: 1.800.4.Accident | Local: 206.727.4000
Get Help Now
Contact us today for a free, no obligation consultation about your personal injury legal needs. Call 206-727-4000 or fill out the form below.
ARTICLE: ENT docs admit to medical mistakes
Health Management Technology, Sept, 2004
A physician-led survey indicates that nearly half of ear, nose and throat specialists have made a recent medical mistake or are aware of one firsthand.
Dr. David Roberson, Department of Otolaryngology and Communication Disorders at Children's Hospital of Boston, and colleagues sent an anonymous survey to 2,500 members of the American Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and received 466 responses. Of these, 210 physicians--45 percent--said a medical error had occurred in their practices within six months. About one third of these errors caused major injury or harm, and 4 percent were fatal.
Technical errors during medical procedures grabbed the largest share of the mistakes with 19 percent. Medication errors followed closely behind--14 percent--and included missteps like giving patients the wrong dose, administering medication to which a patient was allergic or failing to note contraindications. Another 10 percent included testing mistakes such as physicians ordering incorrect tests or laboratories losing specimens and misinterpreting results. Younger physicians were more likely than their over-50 counterparts to make mistakes.
Roberson and his colleagues suggest that the study underestimates the number of medical errors that occur. Physicians might not be trained to recognize errors and may tend to recall serious mistakes but overlook the minor ones, they noted.
Best and Worst Hospitals in Seattle - NEW
Davis Law Group and attorney Chris Davis has been featured in news reports on these local and national news sources:
2101 Fourth Avenue, Suite 630, Seattle, WA 98121
Phone: (206) 727-4000 Fax: (206) 727-4001
Toll Free: 1-866-595-3565
Testimonials
- "Chris Davis will really take care of you."
- "I couldn't be more happy...with Davis Law Group"
- Smart people, know their stuff, trustworthy.
- "Chris Davis is one of this nation’s premiere personal injury/accident lawyers...Chris is the real deal."
