Medical Errors

I keep discovering new depths of the incompetence in the medical industry beyond what I had imagined before I had my recent hospitalizations. There is a large and growing literature on the subject and the most recent piece appeared on TV, in major newspapers like The Washington Post and on the Internet at the same time.

This piece, which has received such remarkable attention, is an article in the BMJ, formerly known as “The British Medical Journal,” by Martin Makary and Michael Daniel , entitled “Medical error—the third leading cause of death in the US.”

Makary had already published a book on the subject in 2012 which I've just finished reading, “Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care.”

Makary is worth reading because he has clearly put a lot of experience and thought into the subject of medical errors and because he definitely cares about it. You sense that he has seen it, that he means what he is saying, that he truly cares about it.

 His remedy is transparency, sunlight - “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” he writes. So he writes these books and articles, hoping to increase awareness within and without the profession of the nature and extent of medical errors.

My best guess is that he is probably right about enlightenment being the best cure, knowledge being the best hope for reducing the problem.

But there is a part of me that feels that knowledge alone – sunshine and transparency - is only part of the remedy, and probably even a very real part of the problem.

For one thing, there is already a massive amount of knowledge, sunshine, about the existence and prevalence of medical error. Just Makary's stuff alone proves it. The doctors themslves know this better than anyone else. I think it is well established that when you go to a medical doctor, you are more likely to be harmed than to be helped.

And there is also this matter of the almost universal spiritual corruption involved, especially when it comes to “making money” or “keeping one's job” or “supporting one's family.” If you speak the truth, spread the sunshine, it is almost certain that you will not be able to support your family, or even yourself.

Now that makes the solution tougher than what we normally think of as knowledge, enlightenment, transparency, sunshine, or such. In fact, the belief that knowledge itself is the cure may itself be the biggest part of the problem. If it is thanks to human love that we live, then just knowledge itself, is not enough. It seems to me that Makary consciously avoids coming anywhere near mentioning this.