Analysis of Medical Errors Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Analysis of Medical Errors - Research Paper Example   The issue is heavily laden with the emotional and fiscal burden as patients must be aware of their treatment progress and any mistakes that have been made while hospitals and doctors have a very real need to protect themselves from lawsuits and protect their credibility. At the same time, it is difficult for many doctors to have to face the fact that in the course of attempting to improve health, they may have inadvertently made it worse and then to try to communicate this failing to the patients who have trusted them. While it seems the greatest opinion among medical workers is that patients should be informed whenever mistakes have been made, the reality is that the medical profession has a large tendency to hide mistakes when possible so as to avoid unpleasantness.  Ã‚   In â€Å"Disclosing Medical Errors to Patients, †1 the authors point out the prevalence of avoidable error or ‘adverse events’ within the medical profession as being relatively high – 37 percent of the discovered cases in a Canadian study preventable. In response to this, â€Å"leaders in the patient-safety movement have called for the system defects that underlie most errors to be corrected, as well as improvement in the recognition and reporting of errors and the disclosure of harmful errors to patients and their families.†2 Benefits of full disclosure are outlined, such as patients having greater knowledge about their own treatment  and thus able to make more informed decisions and patients’ ability to participate in problem-solving techniques to prevent future errors from occurring again.  Ã‚  However, the article also points out the difficulty doctors have had in providing full disclosure.  Ã‚