Iatrogenic Diseases and Medical Malpractice

What Iatrogenic Means and Its Fatal Consequences

The word "iatrogenic" means induced inadvertently by a physician or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures. Simply put, iatrogenic refers to adverse affects or complications because of medical treatment or advice from a physician, psychologist, therapist, pharmacist, nurse, dentist or other healthcare professional. Iatrogenic diseases also result from alternative medicine treatment and advice.

It is estimated 120,000 to 225,000 deaths in the United States each year may be attributable to some degree by iatrogenisis. It is difficult to know precisely the number of deaths resulting from iatrogenisis as there is no mandatory reporting system for healthcare professionals. This, in turn, also makes it a challenge to identify causes of iatrogenic events and develop procedures to prevent iatrogenisis.

Causes of iatrogenisis are:

· Nosocomial infections: These are infections that originate in a hospital. Symptoms are pain, fever, night sweats, breathing problems, infection, inflammation and swelling. Nosocomial infections may be responsible for 80,000 deaths annually.

· Medical misadventure: Injuries or adverse effects as a result of medical treatment. The Institute of Medicine in its report of 2000 estimated 98,000 people die per year from preventable medical errors.

· Medication errors: The Institute of Medicine approximates 7,000 deaths due to medication errors.

· Adverse reactions: The American Medical Association calculates 108,000 deaths from adverse pharmaceutical reactions, even though the medications prescribed were FDA-approved.

These figures only represent hospitalized patients. Non-hospitalized patients, outpatients, dental patients and residents of care homes are not included, but are equally vulnerable to iatrogenic diseases.

A presidential report of 2000 reported many shocking facts. The report called iatrogenic error a problem of epidemic proportions which causes tens of thousands of deaths each year and stated one-half of the iatrogenic errors were preventable.

More people die each year from medical errors than from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer and AIDs. Of the 2,000,000 people each year who contract infections in hospitals, 90,000 will die. To compound the situation, the overuse of antibiotics to treat infections has lead to bacterial infections becoming resistant to medications.

Seventy percent of hospital infections are resistant to a minimum of one of the antibiotic drugs used for treatment. Staphyloccossus aureus, commonly known as staph, is resistant to 95 percent of first-choice antibiotics and 30 percent of second-choice antibiotics. Staph is the primary cause of hospital infections. A research report of 1999 discovered staph doubles the death rate, costs per patient and the duration of the patient's hospitalization.

There is another aspect to iatrogenic diseases. People suffering from chronic pain may be undertreated or have their condition misdiagnosed as a psychiatric disorder rather than a physical illness. Ineffectual treatment for these people has caused suffering and, even, death.

Iatrogenic diseases may be obvious, such as complications from surgery, or they may be difficult to identify, as in complex drug interactions.

Confirmation of death due to iatrogenic disease is an involved process. If you have lost someone you love and believe their death was the result of an adverse reaction or complication due to medical treatment, contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney for advice.

Attorney Richard Hastings, for the past two and one half decades, has been helping injured clients and families collect millions of dollars in losses ranging from motor vehicle accidents to wrongful death, to medical malpractice. He is the founder of Selectcounsel, LLC, a free service that helps you find one of the best lawyers in your area and is the author of the books "How To Find A Great Lawyer" and "Understanding And Improving The Value Of Your Personal Injury Case."

Please visit http://www.SelectCounsel.com to see how they can find you one of the best lawyers in your area for your serious injury or medical malpractice case.

Selectcounsel, LLC is a FREE national service that helps people with serious personal injury and medical malpractice cases find one of the best lawyers in their area to represent them. The lawyers we recommend are independently rated by attorneys and judges as being among the very best in their field of practice. Visit us at http://selectcounsel.com/ to see how we can help you find one of the best lawyers for your case.

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