Often times, mistakes are a combination of numerous occurrence that combine to make the perfect storm. I believe that Lewis Blackman’s Story is one such occurrence. However, it was not just the actual mistakes that made this case noteworthy.
Mistakes are a human manifestation. As Alexander Pope wrote in “an Essay on Criticism”, to err is human, to forgive is divine. In Lewis’s story, I think an apology, in the great sense, would have gone a long way. Medical errors are now the third leading killer in healthcare according to a Harvard study (Makary & Daniel, 2016). While I would challenge anyone that says mistakes are not human, that they are completely avoidable, I would counter that owning mistakes and learning from them is essential to improvement. Leilani Schweitzer (2013) relays after the death of her 14 month old son to a medical mistake, that instead of vilifying her, the hospital “investigated, they explained, took responsibility and apologized. And then they asked what else they could do. It made all of the difference. Transparency in medicine can help heal our medical system. And we all know that needs a lot of help. By being open and honest when the unexpected happen, we can find our mistakes. We can find the deadly system failures and we can act to fix them.”
While self-improvement is necessary and important, it can …show more content…
I would restate that mistakes are an attribute of being human. Without mistakes, we would never have learned – to walk, to talk, or much of anything else. Mistakes are part and parcel of being human, and everyone is prone to make them. Humans are fallible. It is not necessarily the mistake that makes us inhuman; rather it is when we do not acknowledge a mistake and learn from it AND when we are unable or unwilling to apologize that we lose our humanity. The story of Lewis Blackman makes make contemplate how I will encounter patients and families WHEN I do make a
Mistakes are a human manifestation. As Alexander Pope wrote in “an Essay on Criticism”, to err is human, to forgive is divine. In Lewis’s story, I think an apology, in the great sense, would have gone a long way. Medical errors are now the third leading killer in healthcare according to a Harvard study (Makary & Daniel, 2016). While I would challenge anyone that says mistakes are not human, that they are completely avoidable, I would counter that owning mistakes and learning from them is essential to improvement. Leilani Schweitzer (2013) relays after the death of her 14 month old son to a medical mistake, that instead of vilifying her, the hospital “investigated, they explained, took responsibility and apologized. And then they asked what else they could do. It made all of the difference. Transparency in medicine can help heal our medical system. And we all know that needs a lot of help. By being open and honest when the unexpected happen, we can find our mistakes. We can find the deadly system failures and we can act to fix them.”
While self-improvement is necessary and important, it can …show more content…
I would restate that mistakes are an attribute of being human. Without mistakes, we would never have learned – to walk, to talk, or much of anything else. Mistakes are part and parcel of being human, and everyone is prone to make them. Humans are fallible. It is not necessarily the mistake that makes us inhuman; rather it is when we do not acknowledge a mistake and learn from it AND when we are unable or unwilling to apologize that we lose our humanity. The story of Lewis Blackman makes make contemplate how I will encounter patients and families WHEN I do make a