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Wednesday, July 13, 2005In Medical Errors and Medical Narcissism, John Banja, a clinical ethicist at Emory University, focuses on the psyche of the erring physician. Rather than addressing why errors occur and how they can be prevented, his unique emphasis is on the psychological barriers to the recognition and disclosure of medical error. Banja views error as a breach of contract, "an unwarranted failure . . . to accommodate the standard of care". All error involves substandard care, and so the "admission of a harm-causing error is indeed an admission of liability". Patients are wronged by error and owed a debt by doctors and their institutions. This indebtedness entails punishment unless patients can forgive the clinicians. Well, that pretty much sums up the prevailint attitude these days, doesn't it? It sounds more like a lawyer's definition of error than an ethicists. The reviewer, correctly, points out a different point of view: Errors can be, and are, made by reasonable practitioners. One can practice "good medicine" and make mistakes. Two Canadian legal scholars write, "[d]octors . . . are neither guarantor nor insurer of good results" and quote Lord Denning, "‘[W]e must not condemn as negligence that which is only a misadventure.’" Openness about error need not be soul-destroying, as error is not the same as substandard care. Thus, the apocalypse need not come, nor madness either, for physicians to deal with their errors. posted by Sydney on 7/13/2005 08:25:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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