When Doctors Make Mistakes Gawande Analysis

Improved Essays
When doctors make mistakes is an article which was written by Atul Gawande. The main point why Gawande wrote his article was because he wanted to bring out the real picture of what the medical officers are doing. He wanted to expose how medicine is disturbing and strange business since it is surprising and messy. He wanted to show the public that all doctors do mistakes when undergoing their day-to-day activities but these mistakes are usually unavoidable. Through this, he was trying to bring out the consequences that follow the mistakes that the doctors commit. It is not easy to find a person who can confess the mistakes that they have committed. Therefore, Gawande wrote this article not to seek sympathy from the readers but to ensure that the public understand their situation. This was because he gave as much details as possible in order for the readers to make their choices about the issue because most of the time the doctors are criticised because of their mistakes. Since human beings are prone to mistakes, Gawande wanted understanding from the people. As much as the mistakes are unavoidable, doctors are always tryingimproving and correcting their mistakes. …show more content…
According to me, Gawande’s article is persuasive. This is because the author of the articles used first-hand information to inform the readers about the kind of mistakes they commit in their line of duty. Having been in the situation the author was able to give each and every detail about the situation. Due to this, it made me understand that people are prone to mistakes but they should try hard to ensure they can prevent it from happening. Though the doctors make mistakes in their line of duty, it should not be an excuse to commit other preventable mistakes. If there is a reasonable reason as to why the mistake happened, then we as citizen should not criticise

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    With his last chapter, author of, Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science, Atul Gawande states that uncertainty fills the medical field, as even the best doctors in the world have to face situations in which they are unable to provide answers. He describes the case of the death of eight newborns who had the same mother. At the time, doctors thought it was a common newborn syndrome called SIDS but it was later recognized by a detective, who reopened the case, that the mom in fact had murdered almost all of the children. Because the doctors were unable to definitively determine that the mother did not actually smoother her children, it was not until 1999 that she was held accountable Later, Gawande tells of a time that a patient…

    • 242 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Chasing Zero Summary

    • 864 Words
    • 4 Pages

    On of the many issues that was brought up in the “Chasing Zero” video was harsh punishments for health care professionals who make mistakes. The reason I choose this particular issue is because I believe it plays a key role in all health care errors. Every single health care error that is made is a learning opportunity. Taking an error and doing something constructive with it can lead to incredible improvements in patient safety. When this is not utilized, patients and health care professionals are penalized.…

    • 864 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The article, “When Evidence Says No, but Doctors Say Yes,” by David Epstein analyzes how doctors use treatments and procedures by demand or because they have been using them for so long. He presents the argument as to why these treatments can do more harm than good, and why doctors need to look at the evidence about the treatments to make sure they are actually beneficial. Epstein talks about two patients, and how in both stories neither of the patients needed stents. By doing some research and looking at treatments that can be done before surgery, one patient escaped with his life intact. The other patient; however, passed away after being hospitalized for a period of time.…

    • 1985 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Doctor’s responsibilities are to help the patient to get them well and make them healthy and sound. But Some of the procedure which can be denied by the doctor because of its negative effect on patient. A doctor may refuse a patient’s request provided the refusal leaves the patient no worse off than the patient would have been had the patient never met that doctor in the first place. Even though sometimes, Doctors have more objections to filling patient request for certain procedures or objections may be on the medication that patients are having. When a doctor tries to figure out what is best for the patient, they must find out in both way how it is going to affect the patient or not but more consciousness is issue when someone comes to the…

    • 343 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Is a Chiropractor a "Real Doctor?" Some people say that the definition of a doctor is a simple idea; either you are or you are not a doctor. In all truth being a doctor is something that one should take a tremendous amount of pride in for that accomplishment. This is because not only does it take a good amount of schooling, but also it comes with a great amount of responsibility. I perceive the definition of a doctor to be someone who has reached the highest level of learning in a particular field of study.…

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Response and Summary to “How Do We Heal Medicine” In Atul Gawande’s speech “How do we heal medicine”, the speaker assertively claims that healing medicine requires us to embrace different values from the ones we've had, like humility, discipline, teamwork. A good system was also required for reaching the new values. At the beginning of his speech, Gawande explained how is medicine system changed over the time. Not only by providing present and past data and analyzing those data, but also using Lewis Thomas’ book, “The Youngest Science” as a reference for his audience to under the difference of being a doctor between now and post.…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Overkill Gawande Summary

    • 1007 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Overkill, is an article which seems to be a follow-up of a prior article, written about medical care, health cost and doctors possible immoral motivation towards patient care. Stating that “Doctors get paid, for doing more not less” (Gawande, A. p. 6), which led to things such as over testing, over diagnosis and over treatment. The author of the article discusses these miss happenings and amidst that he seems to be pretty consistent in talking about a particular patient Mrs. E. Which, leads me to believe that though he is talking about doctors, in terms of them turning into businessman over care givers, of health cost as being so high that every household feels an impact but he seems to be consistent in also mentioning that it is not just the doctors but it is up to the patient as well to be informed and interactive in the questioning on procedures and tests.…

    • 1007 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Incautious Doctors Throughout the medical history, preventing or curing a disease was one of the hardest dilemmas that doctors face. According to Nuland’s novel, The Doctor’s Plague, where a group of obstetrical doctors came together at Vienna’s general hospital, Allgemeine Krankenhaus, in order to figure out the leading causes of childbed fever epidemic (Nuland). It took them years and decades to find out the roots of the disease. They conducted several theories and experiments to come up a solution, and most of them did not succeed.…

    • 1519 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Deliberate Misdiagnosis

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Introduction The art of diagnosis is complicated, and unintentional misdiagnosis can wreak havoc on the lives of the client, as well as the clinician. This leads one to ponder the circumstances and consequences of a deliberate misdiagnosis by a trained clinician who has taken an oath to operate with utmost integrity. In the article, Deliberate Misdiagnosis, the author spoke about situations where a clinician might feel pressured to deliberately under or over diagnosis a client.…

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This is due to the fact that for a person to be treated by someone that doesn’t know what they are doing is a lot risky because they may end up killing this person by giving the wrong treatment. As this case shows the regulations that are being place now days are to restrict people from practicing a profession or even to make others to not want to go into this field. In the case it is state, “ The first is to reduce the number of medical students by closing some medical school; the second is to make it more difficult for foreign doctors to…

    • 1423 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Atul Gawande’s Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance tells the reader about Gawande’s experience while a doctor. Atul Gawande is a general surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Both, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and an associate professor at Harvard Medical school and the Harvard School of Public Health. Gawande is most clearly an accomplished person, but being this accomplished is enough for him. He wants to be better, he desires to make improvements to his life to benefit those around him. Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance is about not being satisfied with good enough, but trying for better.…

    • 1154 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Abstract Law is formed for a motive and it regulates in many areas like medicine, before practicing any medical procedure or conducting a form of administrative position each medical specialist or non-medical specialist operative must comprehend a difference between ethical or unethical. Ethical and Unethical plays a significant role in our humanity every way it is whether up to how you want to approach it. According to “The case of Jeanette M. And the phone call” altered from the beginning of chapter 1 of “Medical Law and Ethics” inscribed by Bonnie Fremgen, it exemplifies how a medical receptionist and the doctor action resulted in death of Jeanette M. This case falls into so many categories of violations and code of ethics such as being…

    • 1195 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During Dr. Brian Goldman’s Ted Talk, he discusses how doctors make mistakes. He had been a doctor for many years and still to this day makes mistakes. Why do we as a society think terribly about doctors when they misdiagnose? Is it okay for doctors to make mistakes? The answer is, yes.…

    • 1222 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the U.S., the third leading cause of death is not a topic the general public knows and talks about: medical mistakes. According to the Journal of Patient Safety, between 210,000 and 440,000 patients suffer some type of harm. The medical system should change so there are more people double-checking every detail, the hours of doctors shifts are reduced and the topic of medical malpractice is openly discussed. In life or death situations, every small detail needs to be checked and double checked to reduce the likelihood of error. There are far too many examples where negligence by any of the medical staff has led to a patient suffering the consequences.…

    • 593 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Becoming a Doctor I decided I wanted to become a doctor less than a year ago. Arriving at college back in August, I was still skeptical about whether or not it was truly what I wanted to do with my life considering my only reason for becoming a doctor was that I liked the human anatomy and helping people. However, this course and its various intriguing readings and lectures have provided me with significant insight to the world of medicine beyond the basis of diagnoses and prescriptions. The information about the numerous aspects of medicine in the articles we have read have only fueled my interest in becoming a doctor by giving me the proper information on what the job of being a doctor truly entails.…

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays