Concerning Medical Errors

Doctors Should be Transparent Concerning Medical Errors
Physicians should have more transparency regarding medical mistakes. Medical errors by doctors should be accepted and discussed. Some doctors refuse to talk about their medical errors; however, mistakes should not be hidden or something to be embarrassed about. Doctors should have a good line of communication with their staff and patients. As medical mistakes are made, doctors can learn from them to prevent future mistakes.
Doctors should be more open about their mistakes so that they can get psychological help. Doctors need support from their training and patients. As doctors are honest with their teachers and patients, they will have better outcomes with the patient doctor relationship. “Patients, who have an understandable need to consider their doctors, infallible, have doctors to deny their existence of error” (Wu). Some medical mistakes could be prevented through communication. “Medical personnel should be trained in teamwork, communication and other skill sets that will help the system be more effective” (Greenwald). Many medical mistakes such …show more content…
Doctors are taught that making medical mistakes make them weak and mistakes are all perceived as negative. However, since everyone makes mistakes, doctors should be able to be more transparent about them. “Physicians will always make mistakes. The decisive factor will be how we handle them” (Wu). Doctors are not trained to deal with medical mistakes. They try to keep medical errors secrets because they are ashamed of them. “While doctors should strive for as few errors as possible ‘You can’t go through training without making an error unless you are not taking care of patients’, Dr. West said” (Chen). “In the case of an individual colleague, it is important to encourage a description of what happened and to begin by accepting this assessment and not minimizing the importance of the mistake”