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Articles sur Medical errors

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Patient safety incidents are the third leading cause of death in Canada. (Shutterstock)

When health care goes wrong: It’s time for transparency in patient safety

Patient safety incidents were already a leading cause of death in Canada. With that crisis converging with the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic, health care is being pushed to a breaking point.
A culture of perfectionism that begins in medical school is one reason why doctors and other medical professionals struggle to apologize for their mistakes. (Shutterstock)

Why is it so hard for your doctor to apologize?

Despite protective apology legislation across Canada, many doctors and other health-care professionals remain too afraid or ashamed to apologize after medical errors.
Physician burnout can have an impact on both the doctors and their patients. Jamesboy Nuchaikong/shutterstock.com

Physician burnout: Why legal and regulatory systems may need to step in

Doctor depression, burnout and suicide have been rising for some time, and overwork was considered the norm. A health care lawyer explains why the legal and regulatory systems must intervene.
Around 3,000 more Australian patients have a complication in their hospital care in January than in other months. Rawpixel.com

Why you should avoid hospitals in January

New medical staff start in January and may not be as skilled or adept as their predecessors, meaning more things go wrong.
Wooden stakes representing the 2,224 confirmed overdose deaths in British Columbia - many of them young Indigenous people - over the last three years, are placed on the ground at Oppenheimer Park, in Vancouver on September 29, 2017. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)

Indigenous women suffer greatest risk of injury

Research shows that Indigenous women are at greatest risk of injury within Canada. Income, education and housing inequities play a role. So does systemic racism and post-colonial trauma.
Our legal system already has provisions in place capable of responding to criminal conduct by health-care workers. Image from shutterstock.com

Health-care providers – a different class of criminal?

Should Australian health-care workers face criminal penalties if they wilfully or recklessly neglect or mistreat patients? The United Kingdom is currently grappling with this question after systemic failures…
Stalemate. We need a bioethicist. Donchiefnerd

Mistakes in moral reasoning are as lethal as medical errors

Ethical issues are rife in medicine. Arguments about abortion, organ donation and euthanasia regularly take their turn in the headlines, normally prompted by media scare-stories or an arising controversy…
A new review of international studies shows up to 62% of lab tests and 36% of radiology tests aren’t reviewed by doctors. It is believed the rate may be similar in Australia. Waiting room image from shutterstock.com

Medical test results – why no news doesn’t mean good news

In health care, communication can be a matter of life or death. Take the case of an American woman diagnosed with a blood clot in her leg. She died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism the following day, while…
The obligation to tell patients about medical mistakes is clear but we don’t know whether it’s complied with. hang_in_there/Flickr

Open disclosure: why doctors should be honest about errors

TRANSPARENCY AND MEDICINE – A series examining issues from ethics to the evidence in evidence-based medicine, the influence of medical journals to the role of Big Pharma in our present and future health…

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