Medical Mistakes Can Kill Patients

It is alarming how many medical mistakes are killing thousands of Americans each year. It is estimated that as many as 98,000 patients die each year do to errors caused by medical practitioners. This amount is greater than the amount of people killed in car accidents each year.

Injuries as a result of these medical errors are even more prevalent and there is an awful lot of damage that never even gets reported. It has become so widespread that a study was conducted to identify the problem by Harvard School of Public Health and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. This study had 2000 participants consisting of 800 doctors and 1200 adults and the findings were eye-opening. According to the study 35 percent of the doctors said that either they or members of their families had experienced medical errors in the course of being treated, and most said the errors had ''serious health consequences,'' such as death, long-term disability or severe pain. Three in ten had seen an error that caused serious harm to patients outside their families in the past year.

Obviously this is more than alarming than even the doctors could imagine and the first thought is how do you prevent such errors from happening in the first place. Well additional data collected from the study suggest that the inflexibility of medical community to change willingly will leave only legal recourse of a medical malpractice attorney to instigate the changes needed. You may ask why take legal action against a doctor as a solution? The reason is that Doctors are indifferent to regulating themselves and changing procedures to prevent such mistakes. For example two thirds of all of the Doctors surveyed did not feel that reducing the work hours of young doctors in training to even though it has been shown to be effective in reducing the very fatigue that causes many of the medical mistakes. In addition 75% are do not think it would be effective to change to electronic methods to order drugs or to include pharmacists in hospital rounds even though these methods have shown to reduced medication mistakes in hospitals. The reluctance of doctors to change is disturbing and that is why lawsuits and other legal methods are better deterrents to reduce the risks associated with many medical procedures. These medical lawsuits bring to the forefront the problems with the medical community and no doctor likes to get sued. So if you or anyone you know has been injured or even killed by a medical error, it is imperative you call a medical malpractice attorney to assist with protecting the rights of that injured person and prevent further injury to many other patients.

Resources To find a medical malpractice attorney you can visit USAhurt.com a lawyer directory focused on providing access to the top medical malpractice lawyers and law firms across the country. They are currently offering Free case evaluations for Chicago medical malpractice suits and New York medical malpractice suits.

You can view more of Keith's work as a contributing writer for usahurt.com

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