The Paradox of Perfection: Part 2 of 5

No one is perfect - NO ONE

To be clear, the victim of a medical error is the patient. As many as one in ten patients admitted to a hospital will experience an unintentional adverse event or medical error. Medical errors are purportedly the third leading cause of death in the U.S.

No one is perfect. No one. And yet, that is what we expect from healthcare providers. What’s more, perfection is what medical professionals expect of each other. My question is this:

Do we, as healthcare consumers, exacerbate the issue of patient safety by perpetuating an unattainable expectation of perfection?

Dr. Brian Goldman refers to medicine’s culture of denial and shame that prevents healthcare providers from talking about, and learning from, the inevitability of errors. Follow this link to watch his TED Talk. How can medical professionals and healthcare consumers learn anything from medical errors if healthcare providers go mute with shame and patients remain naive with expectations of absolute perfection?

For years I was not sure how I could contribute to solving the challenge of patient safety. With my long history in medical devices and knowing that over a million medical product incidents are reported to the FDA annually, I hope that my small contribution can be one piece of a big puzzle that may help bring a solution into clarity.

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Part 3 will be published next Monday: "The Second Victim of Medical Errors".