2012.10.03 13:34
and Safety Equations JAMA. 2012;308(12):1211-1212. doi:10.1001/2012.jama.11913. ExtractCases of delayed, missed, and incorrect diagnosis are common, with an incidence in the range of 10% to 20%.1 Some errors in diagnosis stem from mistakes in the interpretation of diagnostic tests. For example, pathology, radiology, and the clinical laboratory each have error rates of 2% to 5%. Superimposed on these testing errors are the ubiquitous system-related errors encountered in every health care organization, as well as cognitive errors caused by faulty clinical reasoning. Diagnostic errors do not occur only in connection with unusual conditions but span the breadth of clinical medicine, from rare disorders to commonplace ones like anemia and asthma.2 - 3 |
2012.10.03 14:01
2012.10.04 18:37
Informations out there even in their palms these days.
But they don't know how to make decision, nor to
connect those informations to the patients they deal
with.
Not long ago, NY Times reported doctors these days
treated Computer, not the patients. They'd better
Listen to the patients and Examine them, not looking
at Computer and stuck to it to get Informations.
We are trained to Make Decisions how to apply to our
patients after we swim around the vast sea of informations.
Computer doesn't Make Decision for you, but you're the one
that has to.
If you read the full page article, you will note that this serious problem is
totally ignored in our current health care system.
The only time this problem is highlighted is when we read about many of the malpractice suits.
Any practicing physician can quote a number of cases in his own practice, relating to all kinds of
diagnostic errors in our complicated modern medicine dealing with all kinds of advanced diagnostic tools,
including CT scans, MRIs, ultrasounds, nuclear scans, etc.
If you read the book, "How Doctors Think" by Dr. Groupman(which I recommended on this page),
you will find all those horror stories resulting from all the mistakes, errors in medical diagnosis.
Dr. Groupman advises the patient to take an active role in helping his physician in order to minimize
this problem. By that he means that the patient should not believe what his doctor telling him or her
without asking all the pertinent questions, such as "Did you actually see my CT scans along with
the radiologist to confirm what he reported in his written report?"
In other words, the patient should deal with his doctor as he would with his lawyer in a sense.
It is indeed sad in a way, yet is necessary because average practicing doctor depends so much on
other specialists that he or she no longer can guarantee the accuracy of the diagnosis.
After all the praciticing doctor is so limited in face of the enormity of modern medicine and demands
that unless the patient questions and questions or asks and asks, the patient oftentimes winds up
being one of frequent victims mentioned above no matter how good hearted his doctor is and
no matter how well-intentioned his doctor is.