I usually spend my time blogging having a bash at medics who give poor treatment over on NHS Behind the headlines I like to think that I am reasonably fair minded so here is an article from the BBC NEWS entitled “To err is human - but not if you're a doctor” by Dr George Fernie Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland.
He starts out by saying “We've all made mistakes in our work. But if you're a doctor, the consequences can be deadly.” And “urges sympathy for the beleaguered health professional.”
He then goes on to cite a BBC day time “soap”-Doctors, in which a doctor (Dr Melody Bell) who failed to spot the tell-tale symptoms of angina in a patient.
Luckily, her professional instincts rang alarm bells and she got to him shortly after he suffered a heart attack, saving his life.
And says; “Doctors are undoubtedly human like the rest of us. It's just that clinical mistakes can have dire consequences.”
Mention Dr Melody Bell's failure to spot a condition to any doctor and you'll hear them muttering "there but for the grace of God, go I"
NHS figures suggest that 850,000 patients suffer what experts call "adverse events" every year: clinical negligence, missed diagnoses, medical mistakes and more.
The toll in terms of human grief and misery is incalculable. The cost to the NHS - in effect, a cost to us - is around £6bn. But doctors suffer too.
As Sir Liam Donaldson noted in a recent Scrubbing Up, victims of medical mistakes want an apology and an assurance that the mishap won't recur.
He starts out by saying “We've all made mistakes in our work. But if you're a doctor, the consequences can be deadly.” And “urges sympathy for the beleaguered health professional.”
He then goes on to cite a BBC day time “soap”-Doctors, in which a doctor (Dr Melody Bell) who failed to spot the tell-tale symptoms of angina in a patient.
Luckily, her professional instincts rang alarm bells and she got to him shortly after he suffered a heart attack, saving his life.
And says; “Doctors are undoubtedly human like the rest of us. It's just that clinical mistakes can have dire consequences.”
Mention Dr Melody Bell's failure to spot a condition to any doctor and you'll hear them muttering "there but for the grace of God, go I"
NHS figures suggest that 850,000 patients suffer what experts call "adverse events" every year: clinical negligence, missed diagnoses, medical mistakes and more.
The toll in terms of human grief and misery is incalculable. The cost to the NHS - in effect, a cost to us - is around £6bn. But doctors suffer too.
As Sir Liam Donaldson noted in a recent Scrubbing Up, victims of medical mistakes want an apology and an assurance that the mishap won't recur.
Yet the current blame culture in healthcare risks crushing individual medics for one regretful error.”
Then goes on to use a couple of examples of “things that went wrong”-
Take the case of Dr A, a surgeon who mistakenly removed a functioning kidney. At a hearing of the doctors' regulator, the General Medical Council, he admitted his fault.
The GMC panel hearing his case accepted that shortcomings by his hospital had contributed to the mistake.
It acknowledged that support from the hospital was poor.
It observed that doctors, nurses and managers all communicated badly, leaving our medic - and through him, the patient - vulnerable.
Failure was "a team effort". But it was the surgeon who took the rap.
He was found to have seriously failed in his clinical responsibilities and suspended for a year.
And-“Consider also the experience of Dr B, a young GP who was called to the home of a 15-year-old girl complaining of a severe headache, fever and pains in her legs.
The GP examined the girl for any rash or bruising, the tell-tale signs of meningococcal septicaemia - a bacterial infection of the blood, commonly known as blood poisoning and didn't see any.
He did the right thing in examining her, but crucially made no medical note of it.”
It is worth reading the whole article.
I think that most of us know that Doctors don’t deliberately set out to harm patients, unless your name is Shipman of course, but the difference is that doctors don’t fix computers or TVs they “work” on people, and if their work is not acceptable then there must be some sort of personal responsibility.
“Failure was a team effort” is a cop out, teams are made up of individuals, each individual has a personal responsibility to ensure that their “work” is carried out properly, if anyone of the team fails then the rest of the team should ensure that the “mistake” is rectified.
Personal responsibility are the keywords to better treatment, yes Doctors make mistakes, yes they are human, but when a mistake happens we deserve an explanation and an apology, we deserve to know what went wrong, we deserve to see action taken against those who have harmed us or our loved ones.
That expectation is not “blame culture” as Dr George Fernie says it is a right of patients and their families; does he think that the relatives of the Mid Staffs disaster should walk away and forget, or the relatives of the Gosport massacre should forgive? I don’t think so, and deep down I don’t think he does either, the problem I have found with Doctors is that they are not us, let me explain, doctors are seemingly unable to look at things from a patients or relatives point of view, and I can understand that, because they need to grow a shell, otherwise they would not be able to do the job.
I can sympathise with a doctor who has made a fatal mistake, after all they are human, but what I cannot sympathise with is the cover up and deny culture of the NHS, the senior managers that will not admit wrongdoings because it will affect the ratings or their status, and the senior medics that seem to think that because they are consultants or medical directors they can do no wrong and treat damaged patients and grieving relatives with distain and arrogance because “we” do not comprehend the complexities of medicine.
The NHS has become a “no blame” institution, the attitude of the upper echelons has destroyed the prime directive of our “old lady” which is to treat patients to the best standard that can be delivered, mistakes happen, we all know that, but those mistakes must be recognised, and accepted by the people who make them and action must be taken to prevent the same thing happening again even if it means suspending or removal from the medical register of those responsible.
Remember Personal Responsibility, not “system failure” or “team errors” should be the tenet that medics live by, because we deserve better.
"As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is our responsibility." Arnold J Toynbee
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