Horrifying: Medical Errors Are Ranked As The Third Most Likely Cause Of Death

Surgery_Feature
Shutterstock

On any given day, you have enough to worry about. Average everyday folks worry about taxes, bills, laundry, work, housing, Zika, Mcdonald’s, fartsTrump, Cruz’s elbows, cats, dogs, and death. You name it. One of these worries might have crossed your mind today and it’s probably caused some anxiety. At the top tier of these concerns, of course, is health. We work out, we do yoga, we pay exorbitant amounts on health insurance, all in an attempt to stay healthy just a little longer. The last line of defense are doctors, the hired guns we trust with our lives if need be. More often than not they do a fantastic job and they heal exactly what they set out to heal.

But (we’re sorry to add to your list of worries) they don’t always keep people alive. Johns Hopkins University researchers estimate that more than 250,000 Americans die each year as the result of medical errors, which ranks it third behind heart disease and cancer as most common cause of death.

surgery
Shutterstock

The estimate accounts for the rare slip up and malpractice culprit, sure, but it also includes the far more frequent accident and miscommunication that can happen when patients are passed to new doctors or departments. A 1999 report estimated the number of deaths at 98,000 per year. Horrifyingly, other studies go further, saying the number is between 200,000 and 400,000. Unfortunately, the number of annual injuries from medical slip ups is likely much higher. One doctor said the only thing that’s gotten better since that initial report is a decline in infections people get during a hospital stay.

Johns Hopkins professor of surgery Martin Makary told the Washington Post: “We all know how common it is. We also know how infrequently it’s openly discussed.” According to Dr. Makary the point of the study is to get people talking about this problem and to increase funding and research to figure out better ways to address it. So a resolve might be on the horizon. Until then we’re left to believe all doctors are just like Alec Baldwin in Malice:

×