Medical practitioners are surprised when their performance is called into question. Many have a feeling of invincibility based on a lifetime of accumulated educational and professional successes.
The public add to this assumption by placing complete faith in their selected practitioner — until some misadventure occurs. Then the blame game starts.
When defending a claim, it is unreasonable to expect defence counsel to be cognisant of international medical literature concerning the condition in dispute. The defendant doctor should make it their job to amass expert opinion so lawyers can filter and present appropriately.
MJA INSIGHT Aug. 1. 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
12,000 Australians were dying each year because of preventable events
Catastrophic medical errors are going unreported at the Royal Children's Hospital, according to research by doctors, who have called for more measures to prevent them.
Two doctors from the hospital, Reshma Silas and James Tibballs, reported in the journal Quality and Safety in Health Care, that a systematic review of intensive care unit staff and their management of patients picked up hundreds of adverse events, including many that were not detected by the hospital's voluntary reporting system.
Professor Tibballs, a senior intensive care specialist, said the research suggested an ''epidemic of adverse events'' in hospitals that the medical community and broader population knew little about. The 2 doctors found 405 adverse events over 176 days of research. 28% were major errors and 3% were catastrophic. In contrast, when the researchers looked at adverse events reported through the hospital's voluntary reporting scheme over the same period, they found 166 events in 100 patients.
Professor Richardson of Monash University said it was astonishing that so little had been done since The Quality in Australian Health Care Study in 1995 estimated about 12,000 Australians were dying each year because of preventable events.
Source: The Age online, 07.03.11; 08.03.11.
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