As you read this, I’m about to go under the knife. It’s just a minor surgery; I expect to be back at work early next week. Still, as I sit and wait pre-surgery, I can’t help but think about medical mistakes.
We complain about the rising costs of healthcare, but personally, I’d rather pay high prices for a great surgeon who gives A+ service, than pay low prices for one who does C- work. Surely you’ve heard the horror stories: people getting the wrong organs removed, the wrong legs amputated, or medical instruments left inside of their bodies during surgery. In 1997, comedian Dana Carvey wasn’t laughing when he had heart bypass surgery for a blocked coronary artery, and the surgeon operated on the wrong artery.
These days, people like Joseph Pleban, a 23-year-old extreme sportsman, prefer to take matters into their own hands. Pleban was diagnosed with a rare bone and joint disease which caused recurring tumors in his ankle.
He would be unable to continue pursuing extreme sports like wakeboarding unless he amputated his foot. Pleban elected for the surgery, but not without first getting a tattoo indicating exactly where the surgeon should cut!
Surgeons aren’t the only ones who make mistakes. The recently published book, 1,227 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off, reports that “More than 7,000 Americans die each year and 1,500,000 are injured as a result of doctors’ bad handwriting.” Yikes! Indeed, NPR.org reports that “medical errors are the third-leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease, which is the first, and cancer, which is second.”
Thankfully, things are being done to change these statistics. In 2008, doctors began switching from pen and paper to electronic prescriptions. Today, more than 70% of doctors are using software for e-prescriptions, which hopefully is helping to reduce some of these unnecessary errors. Preventing such errors won’t just save lives, it will also save lots of money. A study of two prestigious teaching hospitals determined that 2 of every 100 patients admitted experienced a preventable adverse drug event, resulting in average increased hospital costs of $4,685 for each affected patient. Annualized, that figure represents $2.8 million for just one 700-bed hospital and about $2 billion for inpatients nationwide!
I can’t help but see the parallels between the medical world and the logistics industry. Isn’t it better to spend a little more on the front-end to reduce risk and prevent errors, rather than opting for C-rates and then paying for costly “preventable” mistakes after they occur?
Of course, we all know that sometimes logistical errors are inevitable. Likewise, certain medical bloopers cannot be avoided. Doctors and nurses are human, after all, and occasionally they are bound to make unintentionally funny (and hopefully harmless) mistakes. Here are a few silly spelling and grammar errors lifted directly from real medical reports:
- The patient has been depressed ever since she began seeing me in 1983.
- The patient’s past medical history has been remarkably insignificant with only a 40 pound weight gain in the past three days.
- She slipped on the ice and apparently her legs went in separate directions in early December.
- He had a left-toe amputation one month ago. He also had a left-knee amputation last year.
- On the second day the knee was better and on the third day it had completely disappeared.
- She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life until 1989 when she got a divorce.
- The patient refused an autopsy.
- The lab test indicated abnormal lover function.
- The patient was in his usual state of good health until his airplane ran out of gas and crashed.
- The patient was to have a bowel resection. However, he took a job as stockbroker instead.
- When she fainted, her eyes rolled around the room.
- She has no rigors or chills but her husband says she was very hot in bed last night.
- Exam of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized.
Please, no clowning around this weekend,
~Bob
