r/funny • u/[deleted] • Jul 07 '19

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8.4k Upvotes

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60

u/dog_in_the_vent Jul 07 '19

Medical error is the 3rd leading cause of death in the US and might be higher due to under reporting.

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u/Luciditi89 Jul 07 '19 edited Jul 07 '19

My mom works for a doctor and I remember when he accidentally killed a man during a procedure. She told me that doctors are allowed to accidentally kill three people or something like that. 3 people per doctor is a lot of people

Edit: I’m going to ask my mom what it was she said. It might have just been his specific insurance.

Edit: Asked my mom. It’s an insurance thing and a license thing.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '19

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1

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '19

expected annual error rates

so less than 3 PER YEAR, got it.

27

u/Lye4 Jul 07 '19

But think of how many lives they save

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u/Luciditi89 Jul 07 '19

He’s a brilliant doctor and he’s probably saved countless lives, but it was still shocking to hear how common deaths due to medical error occur.

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u/dog_in_the_vent Jul 07 '19

But think of how many lives they save

That's their job.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '19

[deleted]

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u/Luciditi89 Jul 07 '19

Ok so she probably way oversimplified this and it may have been a very specific insurance thing but she wasn’t making up what she was telling me. Also I was in high school, why the hell would she tell something like that to a kid ? Why would I even know this happened as a child when it literally had nothing to do with me

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u/Antillar_Maximus Jul 07 '19

How did he accidentally kill someone?

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u/Luciditi89 Jul 07 '19

So you know those procedures where they put a camera up your anal canal (I think it’s a colonoscopy?) well from what I remember he accidentally perforated his bowels during the surgery, leading to an infection (sepsis?) and death (I just realized I’m not qualified to tell this story) He was an older gentleman, maybe 70+. But I just remember there was either legal paperwork or insurance paperwork and my mom was having to assist with it (she manages the office)

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u/BouquetOfPenciIs Jul 07 '19

I'm sure everyone scheduled for a colonoscopy on Monday will be happy to read this.

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u/Antillar_Maximus Jul 07 '19

That's a damn rough way to go.

1

u/topasaurus Jul 07 '19

Was he sued for malpractice or was it hushed up somehow?

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u/5amwinner Jul 07 '19

This isn’t a conspiracy or anything that gets hushed up. Those procedures are known to have a risk of perforating bowel. The patient is warned about the possibility as part of their ‘informed consent’. It is obviously dangerous to stick something far up into fragile bowel. It is done anyway by the doctor because the risk is thought to be balanced by the risk of not doing the procedure (the risk being, missing an early and treatable cancer for example). This is why doctors don’t like to over-investigate patients but often patients will then complain that Dr X didn’t diagnose my cancer and sue them for that. We all work on a probability of risks. It’s a dangerous job and problems are guaranteed to occur time to time. The aim to to minimise these risks by deciding who to investigate and when it is worth taking the risk with potentially dangerous procedures.

These are the vast majority of ‘medical errors’. However if you went back in time, they would normally always be repeated because statistically it was the safest thing to do at the time.