Reporting Errors: Not surprisingly, doctors differ on their approach to reporting errors to patients:

One problem physicians face, Dr. Gallagher said, is that patients may fail to distinguish errors from unavoidable medical problems.

"I think that often patients assume that any adverse event is due to error," he said. "That's not so. A vast majority of such events are not errors and not preventable. "

That's true. And those unrealistic expectations seem to be more widespread as more and more media attention is given to errors. The reasoning goes something like this: I know from news reports that you doctors make a lot of errors. Therefore, if something's wrong with me, it must be your fault for not finding it sooner.