California starts reporting serious surgical mistakes
Imagine lying in a hospital bed and being awakened from a surgery to the comforting news, "Mr. Smith, we were able to remove your gall bladder without incident."
Only the words aren't reassuring at all. Still in a daze—but becoming rapidly alert—you say, "But I'm here for knee surgery!"
It sounds like a horrifying scene out of a bad science-fiction flick, but the scenario is all-too plausible. Under a new state regulation, California hospitals have begun releasing reports on medical mistakes made during a 10-month period that ended in May. The results have been nothing short of horrifying.
During the 10 months, California hospitals reported over 1,000 cases of "adverse events" where serious medical harm was done to patients (never mind all the instances of less serious harm). Foreign objects were left in patients 145 times, and 41 times doctors operated on the wrong body part or the wrong patient. That's more than three dozen times in 10 months!
What galls me is that this information is just starting to come to light. Make no mistake about it—this type of reporting is not something surgeons sought. Too many surgeons crow about malpractice claims and rising insurance rates as excuses for sweeping medical mistakes under the rug. But there's a much greater issue at stake—accountability. Surgeons who make mistakes need to face accountability, and, just as importantly, they need to become more accepting of their fallibility.
There's an old story about a Northeast farmer who, despite his arrogance, didn't have much of a green thumb. One year, he decided to plant peas, and nothing came up. The next year, he tried broccoli—another terrible harvest. Finally, a friend said, "John, why don't you just plant corn like everyone else?"
"Heck," the farmer laughed, "What do I know about growing corn?"
The point is that it can be hard for anyone who takes pride in what they do to admit their mistakes and shortcomings. And surgeons, in my experience, have a very difficult time with this. For lack of a better analogy, they are the pampered star athletes of the medical profession.
But when star athletes make mistakes, they make them in front of thousands— and sometimes millions—of people. When star athletes stop performing, they are held accountable. They lose their jobs. If surgeons want to keep earning money by the truckload, they need to accept more reporting, more scrutiny, and more accountability.
While that plays out, I'm going to remind you of something I have been telling you for years—90 percent of all surgeries performed in America each year are unnecessary. They are too aggressive a treatment option, they cause damage that is far worse than the initial condition, and they often just plain do not work. The California report is just more evidence that there's no such thing as "routine" surgery. If you have a doc who's just itching to cut into you, do the smart thing— get a second opinion.
