Medical Errors Quotes

Participatory Medicine is a model of cooperative health care that seeks to achieve active involvement by patients, professionals, caregivers, and others across the continuum of care on all issues related to an individual's health. Participatory medicine is an ethical approach to care that also holds promise to improve outcomes, reduce medical errors, increase patient satisfaction and improve the cost of care. ~ Bertalan Mesko

Rather than being fearful of not detecting disease, both patients and doctors should fear healthcare. The best way to avoid medical errors is to avoid medical care. The default should be: I am well. The way to stay that way is to keep making good choices - not to have my doctor look for problems. ~ John Mandrola

These core principles - helping patients, preventing medical errors, promoting best practices and improving quality - are the reasons that health IT is featured in both the 2012 Republican platform and 2012 Democratic platform. ~ Sheldon Whitehouse

One study concluded that there were 1.7 errors per patient per day in America's ICUs. Of these errors, 29 percent could have caused clinically significant harm or death. Given that the average ICU length of stay is three days, this research suggests that nearly all patients hospitalized in the ICU sustain a potentially life-threatening mistake at some point during their stay. ~ Peter Pronovost

With tens of thousands of patients dying every year from preventable medical errors, it is imperative that we embrace available technologies and drastically improve the way medical records are handled and processed. ~ Jon Porter

In a medical sense I'm a prophet. But I'm not unique. I mean there are many prophets in many different vocations. I happen to be one of them, without sounding too egotistical I am a pioneer. I am doing pioneering stuff in neurosurgery. There is stuff that I'm doing that no-one else is doing. ~ Charles Teo

There is voluminous evidence that exclusive reliance on heuristic processing tendencies of Type I sometimes results in suboptimal responding (Baron, 2008; Evans, 2007a; Gilovich, Griffin, & Kahneman, 2002; Johnson-Laird, 2006; Kahneman & Tversky, 1973, 1996, 2000; Koehler & Harvey, 2004; Nickerson, 2004, 2008; Nisbett & Ross, 1980; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974, 1983, 1986) and that such thinking errors are not limited to the laboratory (Ariely, 2008; Åstebro, Jeffrey, & Adomdza, 2007; Baron, 1998; Baron, Bazerman, & Shonk, 2006; Belsky & Gilovich, 1999; Berner & Graber, 2008; Camerer, 2000; Chapman & Elstein, 2000; Croskerry, 2009a, 2009b; Dawes, 2001; Hilton, 2003; Kahneman & Tversky, 2000; Lichtenstein & Slovic, 2006; Lilienfeld, Ammirati, & Landfield, 2009; Myers, 2002; Prentice, 2003; Reyna et al., 2009; Stewart, 2009; Sunstein, 2002, 2005; Taleb, 2001, 2007; Tavris & Aronson, 2007; Tetlock, 2005; Thaler & Sunstein, 2008; Ubel, 2000). ~ Keith E. Stanovich

My life, my soul is anything but finished hence it is not perfect. Only masterpieces are finished and could be considered perfect. So unless you are a "David" or a "Requiem" or perhaps a "Mona Lisa" you are not perfect. We'll be prone to errors and we will make mistakes. But at least these allow us to become something closer to perfection. ~ Daniel Gyorki

I'm a patient person. I think that's one thing that I feel comfortable I can deal with - the downfall and the errors, as long as I see progress and people trying. ~ Phil Jackson

There is no error which hath not some appearance of probability resembling truth, which, when men who study to be singular find out, straining reason, they then publish to the world matter of contention and jangling. ~ Walter Raleigh

Our capitol punishment system is haunted by the demon of error- error in determining guilt, error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die ... The legislation couldn't reform it. Lawmakers won't repeal it. I won't stand for it. I had to act ... I am commuting the sentences of all death row inmates. ~ George Ryan

Systematic errors are known as biases, and they recur predictably in particular circumstances. ~ Daniel Kahneman

It is better not to apply any treatment in cases of occult cancer; for if treated (by surgery), the patients die quickly; but if not treated, they hold out for a long time. ~ Hippocrates

The life we all live is amateurish and accidental; it begins in accident and proceeds by trial and error toward dubious ends. ~ Wallace Stegner

Error is multiform (for evil is a form of the unlimited, as in the old Pythagorean imagery, and good of the limited), whereas success is possible in one way only (which is why it is easy to fail and difficult to succeed - easy to miss the target and difficult to hit it); so this is another reason why excess and deficiency are a mark of vice, and observance of the mean a mark of virtue: Goodness is simple, badness is manifold. ~ Aristotle.

It is not so difficult a task as to plant new truths, as to root out old errors ~ Charles Caleb Colton

The doctrine which, from the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been held by bigots of all sects, when condensed into a few words and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is simply this: I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But when I am the stronger I shall persecute you; for it is my duty to persecute error. ~ Thomas B. Macaulay

I've been a medical and public health professional as well as a mother. I became skilled at juggling a number of priorities and competing interests. Like many other female leaders, I've tried to serve as a role model for the young women at my organization who are trying to balance a high-level leadership position and a family. ~ Margaret Hamburg

It is often the mistakes of others that benefit the rest of us and, sadly, not them ... For the antifragile, harm from errors should be less than the benefits. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nothing is more damaging to the truth than an old error. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Every healthy man in the world wakes up with a stiffy. A fatty. Morning wood. I'm sure there's some medical explanation for the phenomenon, but I just like to think of it as a little present from God.

A chance to begin the day with your best dick forward. ~ Emma Chase

Religious illusion must bow to scientific truth. It is in total error about the nature of the true world. Only science is not an illusion. ~ Sigmund Freud

Who is secure in all his basic needs? Who has work, spiritual care, medical care, housing, food, occasional entertainment, free clothing, free burial, free everything? The answer might be nuns and monks, but the standard reply is 'prisoners'. ~ Erik Von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

The common thread from all those stories was that talking helped, and listening, and time. One day I would find my own place. I couldn't run there, though, because it didn't exist yet; I had to build it myself, out of forgiveness, truth, and terrifying gestures of friendship. ~ I. W. Gregorio

My father's concern for his patients was only enhanced by the fact that so many of them had a personal connection to him...In the words of the historian David J. Rothman, 'doctor and patient occupied the same social space,' promoting a shared relationship. Meanwhile, the poor and minority patients my dad met for the first time at the Mount Sinai--including many he would then follow for years--got the same royal treatment...His goal was to 'take extra pains with the service patients, to be certain they are reassured and confident in your care, and come to believe that you really care about him or her as an individual.' One way he did this was to take advantage of his flexible schedule. 'It's so simple,' he wrote, 'to make an extra visit in the afternoon for these special cases, come back to report a new lab test result, review an X-ray [or] reassure that the scheduled test is necessary, important and will lead to some conclusive information.' Illness, he underscored, was 'frightening. ~ Barron H. Lerner

understand, I will forbid it. This is not a decision for the family to make. It is a medical decision." "You forbid it?" Najid laughed. "You are mistaken, ~ Bobby Adair

Of the many species that have existed on earth
estimates run as high as fifty billion
more than ninety-nine per cent have disappeared. In the light of this, it is sometimes joked that all of life today amounts to little more than a rounding error.
more than a rounding error. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. ~ C.S. Lewis

It was clear to me from the start that I would need to combine both a medical degree with a research qualification, to keep at the cutting edge of medical science and technology. ~ Susan Lim

Drugs and medical technology can be enormously beneficial when used to take care of real complications, but too often they are abused when applied to women birthing normally. These women are thus subjected to unnecessary risks. The key to this problem is informed consent, an ideal too seldom realized. Informed consent means that no woman during pregnancy or labor should ever be deceived into thinking that any drug or procedure (Demerol, Seconal, spinals, caudals, epidurals, paracervical block, etc.) is guaranteed safe. Not only are there no guaranteed safe drugs, but many of them have well-known, recognized side effects and potential side effects.
Informed consent should mean that no woman would ever hear such falsehoods as, "This is harmless," or, "I only give it in such a small dose that it can't affect the baby," or, "This is just a local and won't reach the baby. ~ Susan McCutcheon

No error is more certain than the one proceeding from a hasty and superficial view of the subject. ~ James Madison

Dr.Costa then offered important clues to differentiate the syndrome from polio. in tick paralysis there is no fever, the spinal fluod is normal, the knee jerk and other reflexes are lost early, the patient is passive and apathetic, and, of course, the child has had a recent tick bite, or an attached tick is found. ~ Pamela Nagami

Be honest, Look for areas where you can admit error and say so. Apologize for your mistakes. It will help disarm your opponents and reduce defensiveness. ~ Dale Carnegie

No one should go into debt to study creative writing. It's simply not worth it. This is not medical school. ~ Ann Patchett

In engineering or medical science, a deep understanding of uncertainty can be a matter of life and death. In politics, over-confidence is often the norm; uncertainty is seen as weakness when really it is a vital part of decision making. In this respect, science delivers an important lesson in humility. In ~ Brian Cox

Light is meaningful only in relation to darkness, and truth presupposes error. It is these mingled opposites which people our life, which make it pungent, intoxicating. We only exist in terms of this conflict, in the zone where black and white clash. ~ Louis Aragon

Great errors seldom originate but with men of great minds. ~ Petrarch

I am & have been for years a confirmed anti-vaccinationist. Anti-vaccination has no backing from the orthodox medical opinion. A medical man who expresses himself against vaccination loses caste. Tremendous pecuniary interests too have grown around vaccination. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

If I stay healthy, I have a chance to collect 3,000 hits and 1,000 errors. ~ George Brett

Community health centers do a great deal with limited resources. They provide critical medical care services to many who would otherwise have no other place to go or would end up in an emergency room. ~ Jan Schakowsky

There is scarcely a town or school in Russia from which boys have not run away to the war. Hundreds of girls have gone off in boys' clothes and tried to pass themselves off as boys and enlist as volunteers, and several have got through, since the medical examination is only a negligible formality required in one place, forgotten in another. ~ Stephen Graham

As Freud has shown, blunders are not the merest chance. They are the result of suppressed desires and conflicts. They are ripples on the surface of life, produced by unsuspected springs. And these may be very deep - as deep as the soul itself. The blunder may amount to the opening of a destiny. ~ Joseph Campbell

Out similar characteristics in everyone. For example, law students were undisciplined and competitive, medical students strict and lacking a sense of humor, philosophy ~ Donato Carrisi

A bad administrator is more concerned with reports than with decisions. He wants the hard record which he can display as an excuse for his errors. ~ Frank Herbert

I would say the hierarchy has made terrible errors in judgment and it has to seek forgiveness by its members. ~ William P. Leahy

Speechlessness, however, affirmed in the diagnosis, is carefully based on the facts of the examination, as we see by rendering the statements concerned, just as they stand in examination and diagnosis: If thou examinest a man having a wound in the temple, ... ; if thou ask of him concerning his malady and he speak not to thee; ... ; thou shouldst say concerning him, 'One having a wound in his temple, ... (and) he is speechless'. ~ James Henry Breasted

Without true medical liability reform, our doctors will continue to leave, and young doctors coming out of medical school $100,000 to $200,000 in debt will not be able to afford such onerous costs. ~ Jim Gerlach

At 20, I realized that I could not possibly adjust to a feminine role as conceived by my father and asked him permission to engage in a professional career. In eight months I filled my gaps in Latin, Greek and mathematics, graduated from high school, and entered medical school in Turin. ~ Rita Levi-Montalcini

If we don't change, millions of American families are just one medical emergency, or one layoff, away from financial disaster and bankruptcy. ~ Jim Cooper

I think what medical training does is it gives you the language, the tools to look up facts. I think medical training gives you a sense of how to approach a problem, how to look at symptoms and go down the list of what it might be. ~ Tess Gerritsen