Medical errors are relatively common. Some are preventable, whereas some others are inevitable. Not all of them result in death, however, some errors do lead to death. As is shown in the accompanying article, medical errors have become the third most common cause of death in the US, after heart disease and cancer. Medical errors include acts of omission, such as not diagnosing a disease on time, not starting correct treatment, or not performing the correct surgery on time.
Errors also include acts of commission, such as complications during a diagnostic test/procedure/surgery; or giving wrong medications, etc. Not all medical errors can be linked to doctors. Many of them are due to errors made by nurses, pharmacists, and other hospital staff. For example, phenytoin injection has to be given slowly, at rates of infusion lower than 50 mg/minute; but a nurse may give phenytoin at a much…
