Reflective Journal Review : 'The Wall Of Silence'

Atul Gawande in his article “When the Doctor Makes Mistakes” exposes the mystery, uncertainty and fallibility of medicine in true stories that involve real patients. In a society where attorneys protect hospitals and physicians from zealous trials from clients following medical errors, doctors make mistakes is a testimony that Gawande a representative of other doctors speak openly about failures within the medical fields. In this article, Gawande exposes those errors with an intention of showing the entire society and specifically those within the medicine field that when errors are hidden, learning is squelched and those within the system are provided with an opportunity to continue committing the same errors. What you find when you critically analyse Gawande, “When Doctors Make Mistakes essay is how messy and uncertain medicine turns out to be. Throughout the entire article you experience the havoc within the medicine field as the inexperienced doctor misapplies a central line in a patient.

Healthcare workers are not the only ones fearful of exposing medical errors. The medical institutes themselves operate behind a wall of silence. The IOM first recommended a national medical error reporting system in 1999 and despite attempts by then President Clinton, the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association successfully lobbied against it (Dyess, 2009). As of 2009, only 20 states have a mandatory medical error reporting system and only a fraction of estimated

M was taking a look at his leg that was injured but seemed to be healing. All was thought to be well until one office visit the doctor went across the hall to check on another patient who seemed to have an infected leg. The doctor left the door open where confidentiality here was obviously not being taking into consideration for the patient he was seeing as well as others who were able to hear them. Since the door was open, his parents noticed that he did not change his gloves while entering that other room and came back to check on their son with no gloves on. Dr. M was concerned about Jacobs leg and told him to come back the following week while treating it with antibiotics. The following week he comes back only to see that he has developed osteomyelitis. This was the same infection that the other patient developed while under the care of his supervision. Jacobs delay in his recover cost him the opportunity to play football and a college scholarship. Jacobs’s parents then resorted to suing Dr. M because of his negligence and lack of medical

The case study of Crowe v. Provost, 374 S. W. 2d. 645 (Tenn. 1963), was a highly-anticipated court case for the 1960’s. The following list pertaining to the example of what went wrong and by whom. The first patient appointment opens a file with the patient’s basic information and any allergies including medication(s). This would typically be done with the receptionist. If this was not the doctor’s first time seeing this patient, then the physician should have checked the chart to see if there were any allergies to anything including medication, such as, Penicillin and Cosa-Terrabon. Referring to the Crowe vs. Provost, the child was then rushed back into the doctor’s office with worsening symptoms, the nurse should have listened to the mother. The nurse, could have instructed the mother to take the worsening child to the nearest Emergency Department. The nurse advising the doctor, “That she thought the child was about the same as when the physician saw him earlier in the day” (Flight, M., 2011, page 5-6) was not a good idea. The doctor could have been brought in for an examination of the ailing patient. The receptionist returning from her lunch should not have been a signal for the nurse to leave for any reason with the patient getting worse. Again, the patient and mother should have been instructed to go to the nearest emergency room. The receptionist should not have been left alone with an ailing patient. Mistakenly, the receptionist calling the doctor first and

"Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error…" (John Hopkins Medicine). This soaring number has caused medical errors to become the third leading cause of death in the United States. For many people, medicine seems foreign and unknown. People who have lost loved ones due to medical error desperately look for a reason, and many times that blame falls upon doctors. Media has put a negative connotation on doctors as well, causing their reputation to plummet whenever a hospital procedure turns badly. A renown surgeon and author, Atul Gawande, uses his knowledge and experience to give people a new perspective on medicine. In the article "When Doctors Make Mistakes," Gawande uses rhetorical appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos to prove the need for a change in the medical systems and procedures. He analyzes how the public looks at doctors, giving a new perspective to enlighten the reader that even the best doctors can make mistakes.

This documentary video is very informative and very useful as eye-opener to all that works in the healthcare industry. John Hopkins patient safety expert have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. This large number, victims of medical error, leads to a stigma that people became questioning and doubting the capabilities of healthcare providers resulting on losing trust. This video “Chasing Zero” is a reminder that all nurses, doctors and all the people that works in healthcare industries should be very cautious on the care they provide to patients. A single error can hurt and worst, it can kill someone. This video made me realize as a nurse, that anyone can make a big mistake regardless of years

November, 1999 brought about a release of a report prepared by the prestigious National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine (IOM) making medical mistakes and their magnitude of the risks to patients receiving hospital care to common public knowledge. The IOM concluded that between 44,000-98,000 deaths occur annually because of medical errors. Among a general agreement was that system deficiencies were the most important factor in the problem and not incompetent or negligent physicians and other caregivers (Sultz & Young, 2010). An excellent example of a system deficiency that leads to a crisis and sentinel event was the highly publicized overdose of Heparin to Dennis Quaid’s newborn twins in 2007.

According to the Institute of Medicine, “At least 44,000 people, and perhaps as many as 98,000 people, die in hospitals each year as a result of medical errors” (Kohn et al.). Despite the unfortunate consequences, medical errors provide an important foundation for medicine. An immense uncertainty envelopes the medical field, and frequent leaps must be made. Some of these ventures are prosperous; however, many render unsuccessful. In Complications, Atul Gawande crafts an alluring view of the medical unknown using tales of his personal medical mistakes. Through the use of ethos, logos, and pathos, Atul Gawande argues that medicine’s vast uncertainty has beneficial influence upon society.

The medicinal experts on staff for the 12 hours that the patient was in painful distress while she was being drowned by the feeding solution, neglected to perceive that she was in trouble until it was past the point of no return. While this is obviously a blatant case of medicinal negligence, not all medical malpractice cases are quite so obvious, and not every single medical procedure with a troublesome result can be viewed as medical malpractice negligence. The essential prerequisite for medical malpractice is that the doctor or other medical expert has breached the acknowledged standard of care for their specialty in their geographic area, and that the breach caused harm to the patient. Doctors, as human beings, commit errors consistently, yet in the event that their mistake does not bring about injury or harm to the patient, there are no grounds for lawful

When it comes to health care in the United States, the initial thought many people have are the many growing controversies concerning Obamacare, vaccinations, and making sure all Americans have access to affordable and quality health care. However, what many people fail to realize is a certain aspect in the medical community that, since the early 80’s with the infamous study by Berkman and Frankel, is increasing at such a tremendous rate that the Columbia Medical Review has referred to it as an “epidemic in the medical community.” The statistics regarding the number of individuals who die each year due to medical errors is rising; slowly becoming a major concern in the field. Doctors are busy individuals and at the end of the day still

An article written by Eric Beam, MD and titled “Welcome to post-truth Medicine” was published on the blog The Long White Coat on January 22, 2017. Eric Beam is an internal medicine resident in New York and The Long White Coat is a blog that focuses on healthcare related issues. This article in particular focuses on post-truth in medicine and was written mainly for other doctors, but it also applies to non-doctors. Dr. Beam seamlessly blends together his use of ethos, pathos, and logos to effectively argue that healthcare has been significantly affected in the post-truth era and it needs to stop.

In April 2012, Mr. Hammett’s death was ruled to be human errors that individually would have been unlikely to harm him but proved collectively to be fatal. Mr. Hammett surgery was at at private hospital that did not have any after hours medical cover. During the procedure his oxygen saturation levels were almost perfect, maintaining it at 99%. Somehow during or after being transferred to Post Anaesthetic Care Unit (PACU) his oxygen saturation levels fell to 64%. The anaesthetist assumed that it was caused by an obstructed airway and discharged the patient to the ward; he did not look for anything further to be wrong with the patient. Mr. Hammett complained continously to the RN of high levels of pain; the RN ignored him and referred to him as a “wimp” when switching shifts. Although Mr. Hammett was on a Gemstar pump, which recorded him pressing

It was almost midnight when I got the call from Dr. Seagraves. She told me to meet her in the physicians lounge at 7 am: we had a case. The next morning began like any other in the operating room. We met with the patient, I received permission to observe and then got suited up for case. The patient was an elderly African American woman, she called me handsome and smiled comfortably. When we made it into the OR I was asked to help lift the patient from bed to table, with a subtle warning of “watch out, it’s gooey.” Dr. Seagraves parted the patient’s gown, exposing a mass of raw tissue that somewhat resembled a leg. The patient had suffered a week’s worth of necrotizing fasciitis, more commonly known as flesh eating bacteria. The wound had a certain odor, a putrid smell you do not forget. Our hearts sank in unison as we realized what we were up against. We had to act fast. Dr. Seagraves began scrubbing the wounded tissue as the Anaestesiologist monitored the patient’s progress. I had observed Dr. Seagraves on multiple occasions and never did she express concern for the outcome. For the first time in our relationship I heard her mutter, “This is not good. This is not good at all.”

I am glad that this class had taken part in the listening journal assignment as I was not sure what to expect. I was uncertain of my listening capabilities and have wondered what areas could use improvement. I do consider my interactions with people in hindsight, and I always hope that I did my best to listen and communicate with respect. I am fortunate to find out through the logs that I am above average while listening to others, in respect to the log analysis. I am further aware that this is because of a significant change in my life that took me from being self-focused to other-orientated. If this class had been over thirteen years before, my details on those logs would have been vastly altered.

Anna is a fifty five year old homeless, unemployed woman who was admitted to the Emergency Room (ER) at Victoria Hospital in London, Ontario for pelvic pain and postmenopausal bleeding. During the nurse’s head-to-toe assessment it was found that the patient also had presenting abdominal distention, prompting her physician to order an X-Ray to determine if a gastrointestinal issue caused this distention. Once this was ruled out, Anna’s physicians continued to search for the underlying cause of her abdominal distention, in addition to her other admitting symptoms. As a result, Anna was admitted to the hospital as an inpatient on the Acute Medicine Unit. The day following admission, Anna went for further testing to hopefully discover the cause of her symptoms. The first test completed was an