How's your appetite for tort reform if this affects your daughter?

there is no excuse for this.>

While I agree that it shouldn't happen, let's face it. Doctors are human. They are not perfect. Expecting perfection is just unrealistic, not to mention unsafe in itself. The extra stress that it puts on the doctors, who are already under tremendous stress, would only lead to more mistakes, not less.

Take into account that I work in a hospital. I see everyday someone on the medical team make some kind of mistake, even if it is as simple as mischarting something. Expecting the type of perfection will only lead to people covering up their mistakes, as has been done in the past to avoid punishment.

The JACHO commission has changed their reporting systems to become more of a learning system. They use the incident reports to review regulations at the hospitals, expect the hospital to create new training/policies to limit the same mistakes in the future.

We have an issue going on now where a nurse made a med error. It wasn't on a critical med, but the nurse who made the error reported it attempting to own up to the mistake, not someone else. They are now under suspension as opposed to being retrained or trying to figure out why the error occured. That will only lead to people not reporting the mistakes made, fear of reprisal.

I recently had surgery in which I was given a local anesthetic. The doctor and nurse talked about their favorite tv program they had watched the night before instead of being quiet and paying attention to what they were doing. If this is typical in an operating room, then no wonder instruments and surgical sponges, etc. are left behind. When medical personnel are doing a procedure, their entire focus should be on what they are doing and on that patient. There is no excuse for anything being left inside a patient. A friend's daughter had surgery. An instrument was left inside of her. She had to have surgery, of course, to remove it, just days after having had her first surgery. This is inexcusable!

I understand the frustration of everyone here. Of course no one wants any complication in a surgery or proceedure. Many complain that their doctors act like they are gods, yet you expect them to be gods and never to make a mistake, never to act human! Yes, many mistakes are unexcusable. However, this is a culture where whenever someone admits to the slightest mistake-even if it does no harm to the patient-the book is thrown at them. In such a culture, mistakes can never be addressed and the reasons behind them corrected-those who make them can never be educated and retrained if necessary because everyone is so defensive and fearful of their jobs and their licenses. Probably most mistakes are never even reported due to these fears as well as the fears of lawsuits. I'm not saying that patients should not sue when a lawsuit is warranted-they should absolutely have that right. It's just that the whole system is so punitive right now. I'm not a doctor, so I don't know about leaving instruments behind in surgeries; but I am in the medical field. Some patients hold the threat of a lawsuit over your head like a club the entire time you treat them. I don't know how that is supposed to help better their treatment-it only makes me more cautious about trying different things. Also I might tend to be more likely to stop treatment sooner if it was not having the desired affect right away out of concern for being sued for billing them and not helping them or accused of making them worse. Not saying they shouldn't have the right to sue me if it is appropriate; just that it shouldn't be held over my head as a threat all the time-not if I am to treat my patients properly. (Fortunately, the vast majority of patients don't do that.)

Having said all that, it does seem like there would be a way to keep track of the instruments and sponges used in a surgery, especially if they were all counted. I've had patients point out to me that I forgot some part of treatment (I'm human), and I always say, "Wow, you're right! Thank goodness you reminded me. Always tell me if I do that, okay? And please ask if you have questions." When they give me info from the internet, I consider it. Hey, I'M not god!

Wow that's scary. I remember when I had my C-section, one of the nurses kept counting out loud. I didn't know why she was counting and it was driving me CRAZY (I was on all sorts of medication so I was kind of delirious lol) My mom told me afterwards that the nurse was counting the number of sponges that went in and the number that came out so that they could tell if any were left inside. Smart practice. Makes sense.

 If a person has to have another operation or procedure, or stay days longer, due to an error by the surgical team, the hospital should not charge the patient! I would definitely fight that.

Are the Doctors and Staff getting Stupider? could be....

In an OR no other business should be on discussion, concenstration should be on the operation one member of staff should be there for only checking the equipments etc before, during and after the procedure. It's always better to be safe than sorry.

You say you work in a hospital and you are that uncaring?  You try to pass it all of as "Doctors are human and they make mistakes?"  That's a load and you know it.  Doctors don't get the luxury of making mistakes.  When they make a mistake, it kills somebody or it costs them so much money that they wish they were dead.  I highly suggest you look for another line of work since you quite obviously do NOT belong in the healthcare field, even if it is just cleaning toilets in the hospital lobby.

Errors happen and a systems approach is the only realistic approach to reducing them.

Thinking you can  just fire every person who makes a mistake is an emotional response that will just get 100% of hospital workers fired if carried to its extreme.

Realize what you are trying to achieve here.  People's best efforts have got this down to 0.02%.  In order to get from 0.02% to zero, you have be a very good problem solver.

Checklists are great, but when the checklist has more than a dozen things on it, it starts becoming routine and loses additional effectiveness.  That is to say, it can help you get down to a 0.02% error rate, but not so useful for getting better.  That's true even if you add more checklists.

Remember also, the idea of spending more money on healthcare contributed to a shellacking at the polls, so we need good ideas that don't cost any more.

Sounds tough, but I still think we'll get there as long as it isn't just a group of patients and families angry at health care providers.   I've seen both sides of medical errors.  I've seen some solutions that really make a big difference without costing more or just being more cumbersome.  It's been a while since I've seen a news article about them though, so I better start a blog...