How Many Die from Medical Mistakes

Off Topic
21

[quote]XiaoNio wrote:

Regarding CPR… It rarely works, but sometimes it does work. If you have a cardiac arrest and no one does anything, you’re dead. If you have a cardiac arrest and someone knows how to do compressions, there’s a 95% chance you’re gonna die. That’s a free 5% for someone wailing on your chest. If you don’t think that’s worth it, have a directive written up. If you think it’s worth it than don’t. For what it’s worth, if I’m 85 and I code, I want to ride off into the sunset without any broken ribs.[/quote]

For someone in the street, I believe it’s actually a good be less than 5%. And yes, it’s worth it, I have healthcare provider CPR certification. I never said it isn’t worth it. I’m saying it probably isn’t as powerful as people believe.

22

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Andy63477 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Consider this, with all of our modern knowledge on health and diet, and all our medical interventions, adult life expectancy hasn’t changed much since the early 1800s. In terms of actually adding years to a person?s life, all we have been able to do is help people survive childhood.[/quote]

Dude, are you for real? Where did you get those figures? I would like to see your sources.

I can’t imagine, that stuff like implantable pace maker or coronary angiography haven’t added years to a patient’s life. In 1800s you died, when you got cardiac arrhythmia. Today, those affected people are living long enough to die from cancer in their 80s or 90s.[/quote]

This goes exactly to my point. It is undeniable that medicine saves these people. Which is why you should ask why life expectancy numbers now, that doesn’t mean medicine is necessarily killing as many people as it helps, but what is the real reason? I mean, just from EMS care I’d expect more than that.

Open heart surgery saves tons of people from heart attacks, but heart disease kills as many people as ever.

General health, auto accidents, chemical exposure, symptom treatment est.?

Or maybe we just aren’t as successful as we think. Look at CPR. We all know it. We’ve all seen movies where they do it and the person wakes up. Fact is, that’s REALLY rare. CPR saves very very few people. Even fewer if you look for full recovery.

It’d be interesting to see adult life expectancy without accidental death.[/quote]

It’s not really fair to compare the whole population. Heathly people nowerdays don’t greatly benefit from medical advances, because they simply don’t rely on it. When you exclude this cohort, the difference in life expectancy would be significant higher.

On the other hand people may see our medical knowledge as a free pass to lead a sedentary life style. People getting overweight, eating shit all day long, because there are pills to “fix” the high pressure, portable oxgen tank, when you want to smoke with just a quarter of a lung left.

In medical context an increased life expectancy of 10 years is very much. Can you imagine, how much money is spent on research just to prolong the survival rate for a couple of months? The great health discoveries have been made (like sanitation), now the rewards are pretty small.

But I agree with you, that EMS and especially intensive care is often “over the top”. But wouldn’t you want, that anything possible would be tried, if something bad happened to your loved ones?

A physician told me once, a pill without any side effect also doesn’t have any desired effect. The same goes for the whole medical system.

23

[quote]XiaoNio wrote:

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
I recall Nassim Taleb argued that if the world quite smoking all the lives saved by modern medicine would be a fraction of the lives saved by people just quitting smoking.

Tobacco related death toll per year according to CDC: 5 million

Diabetes related death toll per year according to WHO: 4 miliion
[/quote]

That’s not a fair argument. Medicine can’t make people quit smoking. It can treat lung, mouth, esophageal etc. cancers after you’ve been smoking. I’m only a medical student, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked with a patient about lifestyle change. Medicine as an institution believes in prevention. It can show patients the door, but it can’t make them walk through it.

Personally, I believe our generation is going to have a weird dichotomy of health. Health habits are so well known now. There are going to be people getting into their 50’s and 60’s who’ve been exercising and eating right their entire lives and people who’ve been doing all the wrong things the entire time. It’s going to be interesting how these groups separate out over the next few decades.[/quote]

I don’t think the general public ideas of healthy living are all that accurate at all. Someone living by the food pyramid and jogging a couple of times a week could do a whole lot better.

24

[quote]Andy63477 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Andy63477 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Consider this, with all of our modern knowledge on health and diet, and all our medical interventions, adult life expectancy hasn’t changed much since the early 1800s. In terms of actually adding years to a person?s life, all we have been able to do is help people survive childhood.[/quote]

Dude, are you for real? Where did you get those figures? I would like to see your sources.

I can’t imagine, that stuff like implantable pace maker or coronary angiography haven’t added years to a patient’s life. In 1800s you died, when you got cardiac arrhythmia. Today, those affected people are living long enough to die from cancer in their 80s or 90s.[/quote]

This goes exactly to my point. It is undeniable that medicine saves these people. Which is why you should ask why life expectancy numbers now, that doesn’t mean medicine is necessarily killing as many people as it helps, but what is the real reason? I mean, just from EMS care I’d expect more than that.

Open heart surgery saves tons of people from heart attacks, but heart disease kills as many people as ever.

General health, auto accidents, chemical exposure, symptom treatment est.?

Or maybe we just aren’t as successful as we think. Look at CPR. We all know it. We’ve all seen movies where they do it and the person wakes up. Fact is, that’s REALLY rare. CPR saves very very few people. Even fewer if you look for full recovery.

It’d be interesting to see adult life expectancy without accidental death.[/quote]

It’s not really fair to compare the whole population. Heathly people nowerdays don’t greatly benefit from medical advances, because they simply don’t rely on it. When you exclude this cohort, the difference in life expectancy would be significant higher.

On the other hand people may see our medical knowledge as a free pass to lead a sedentary life style. People getting overweight, eating shit all day long, because there are pills to “fix” the high pressure, portable oxgen tank, when you want to smoke with just a quarter of a lung left.

In medical context an increased life expectancy of 10 years is very much. Can you imagine, how much money is spent on research just to prolong the survival rate for a couple of months? The great health discoveries have been made (like sanitation), now the rewards are pretty small.

But I agree with you, that EMS and especially intensive care is often “over the top”. But wouldn’t you want, that anything possible would be tried, if something bad happened to your loved ones?

A physician told me once, a pill without any side effect also doesn’t have any desired effect. The same goes for the whole medical system. [/quote]

You could look at it without things like accidental death too.

But 10 years considering going from the 1800s where people starved to death and took mercury as medicine while bleeding you and in a place without ambulances and even basic first aid knowledge. It’s not insignificant, it’s just disappointing in my eyes. And remember, life expectancy in the US has been DECREASING.

25

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
This drug was wrongly prescribed to a family member and led to this syndrome which killed him very quickly. If a family member is on gout medication make sure you check the effects.

Drug Allopurinol - Wikipedia

Syndrome: Stevens–Johnson syndrome - Wikipedia [/quote]
Stevens Johnson syndrome is an acute allergic reaction that can happen from the result of taking almost any medication. It has nothing to do with taking allopurinol.

Before you start spouting medical knowledge at least make sure its accurate.

26

[quote]XiaoNio wrote:

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
I recall Nassim Taleb argued that if the world quite smoking all the lives saved by modern medicine would be a fraction of the lives saved by people just quitting smoking.

Tobacco related death toll per year according to CDC: 5 million

Diabetes related death toll per year according to WHO: 4 miliion
[/quote]

That’s not a fair argument. Medicine can’t make people quit smoking. It can treat lung, mouth, esophageal etc. cancers after you’ve been smoking. I’m only a medical student, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked with a patient about lifestyle change. Medicine as an institution believes in prevention. It can show patients the door, but it can’t make them walk through it.

Personally, I believe our generation is going to have a weird dichotomy of health. Health habits are so well known now. There are going to be people getting into their 50’s and 60’s who’ve been exercising and eating right their entire lives and people who’ve been doing all the wrong things the entire time. It’s going to be interesting how these groups separate out over the next few decades.[/quote]

I agree with this partially. BUT the field of medicine does drive the public perception of healthy habits and lifestyle, and many times in a negative direction. Low fat, high carb diets for diabetics and patients with heart disease. And the whole low fat nonsense came and continues to come in large part from the medical field.

Also, I’d point out that medicine has lead ever increasingly to treatment of symptoms and not the cause. Why clean up your diet when there is a pill for your heart burn. People don’t know and aren’t told cancer is lifestyle related. You can manage cancer risk by doing things like losing weight, but that isn’t what doctors will tell you. Medicine today pushes people to focus on symptoms (there is a large dose of politics and money in this subject too).

27

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Andy63477 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Andy63477 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Consider this, with all of our modern knowledge on health and diet, and all our medical interventions, adult life expectancy hasn’t changed much since the early 1800s. In terms of actually adding years to a person?s life, all we have been able to do is help people survive childhood.[/quote]

Dude, are you for real? Where did you get those figures? I would like to see your sources.

I can’t imagine, that stuff like implantable pace maker or coronary angiography haven’t added years to a patient’s life. In 1800s you died, when you got cardiac arrhythmia. Today, those affected people are living long enough to die from cancer in their 80s or 90s.[/quote]

This goes exactly to my point. It is undeniable that medicine saves these people. Which is why you should ask why life expectancy numbers now, that doesn’t mean medicine is necessarily killing as many people as it helps, but what is the real reason? I mean, just from EMS care I’d expect more than that.

Open heart surgery saves tons of people from heart attacks, but heart disease kills as many people as ever.

General health, auto accidents, chemical exposure, symptom treatment est.?

Or maybe we just aren’t as successful as we think. Look at CPR. We all know it. We’ve all seen movies where they do it and the person wakes up. Fact is, that’s REALLY rare. CPR saves very very few people. Even fewer if you look for full recovery.

It’d be interesting to see adult life expectancy without accidental death.[/quote]

It’s not really fair to compare the whole population. Heathly people nowerdays don’t greatly benefit from medical advances, because they simply don’t rely on it. When you exclude this cohort, the difference in life expectancy would be significant higher.

On the other hand people may see our medical knowledge as a free pass to lead a sedentary life style. People getting overweight, eating shit all day long, because there are pills to “fix” the high pressure, portable oxgen tank, when you want to smoke with just a quarter of a lung left.

In medical context an increased life expectancy of 10 years is very much. Can you imagine, how much money is spent on research just to prolong the survival rate for a couple of months? The great health discoveries have been made (like sanitation), now the rewards are pretty small.

But I agree with you, that EMS and especially intensive care is often “over the top”. But wouldn’t you want, that anything possible would be tried, if something bad happened to your loved ones?

A physician told me once, a pill without any side effect also doesn’t have any desired effect. The same goes for the whole medical system. [/quote]

You could look at it without things like accidental death too.

But 10 years considering going from the 1800s where people starved to death and took mercury as medicine while bleeding you and in a place without ambulances and even basic first aid knowledge. It’s not insignificant, it’s just disappointing in my eyes. And remember, life expectancy in the US has been DECREASING.[/quote]

That’s because the US has a shitty healthcare system (besides other sociopolitical problems). I don’t think you guys lack medical knowledge (the top journals are still from the US), but you have a distribution problem. How many people can afford to consultation of a specialist for a “common problem”. Wouldn’t a country like Norway be a much better indicator land? Free health care, tons of money from oil rigs etc.?

Again, 10 years increased life expectancy is a lot. How many strokes occur in the population from 20-70years, and how many occur from 70-80years. It’s way harder to get a person from 70 to 80 years than from 60-70 years.
Or lets see it from this viewpoint: a caveman can become 50 years, when he doens’t get eaten by a saber tooth tiger. So the total life-expectancy increase in the last 30.000 years was only 30years. And an increased of 30% through “just” 200years modern medicine seems a lot to me.

28

[quote]Andy63477 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Andy63477 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Andy63477 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Consider this, with all of our modern knowledge on health and diet, and all our medical interventions, adult life expectancy hasn’t changed much since the early 1800s. In terms of actually adding years to a person?s life, all we have been able to do is help people survive childhood.[/quote]

Dude, are you for real? Where did you get those figures? I would like to see your sources.

I can’t imagine, that stuff like implantable pace maker or coronary angiography haven’t added years to a patient’s life. In 1800s you died, when you got cardiac arrhythmia. Today, those affected people are living long enough to die from cancer in their 80s or 90s.[/quote]

This goes exactly to my point. It is undeniable that medicine saves these people. Which is why you should ask why life expectancy numbers now, that doesn’t mean medicine is necessarily killing as many people as it helps, but what is the real reason? I mean, just from EMS care I’d expect more than that.

Open heart surgery saves tons of people from heart attacks, but heart disease kills as many people as ever.

General health, auto accidents, chemical exposure, symptom treatment est.?

Or maybe we just aren’t as successful as we think. Look at CPR. We all know it. We’ve all seen movies where they do it and the person wakes up. Fact is, that’s REALLY rare. CPR saves very very few people. Even fewer if you look for full recovery.

It’d be interesting to see adult life expectancy without accidental death.[/quote]

It’s not really fair to compare the whole population. Heathly people nowerdays don’t greatly benefit from medical advances, because they simply don’t rely on it. When you exclude this cohort, the difference in life expectancy would be significant higher.

On the other hand people may see our medical knowledge as a free pass to lead a sedentary life style. People getting overweight, eating shit all day long, because there are pills to “fix” the high pressure, portable oxgen tank, when you want to smoke with just a quarter of a lung left.

In medical context an increased life expectancy of 10 years is very much. Can you imagine, how much money is spent on research just to prolong the survival rate for a couple of months? The great health discoveries have been made (like sanitation), now the rewards are pretty small.

But I agree with you, that EMS and especially intensive care is often “over the top”. But wouldn’t you want, that anything possible would be tried, if something bad happened to your loved ones?

A physician told me once, a pill without any side effect also doesn’t have any desired effect. The same goes for the whole medical system. [/quote]

You could look at it without things like accidental death too.

But 10 years considering going from the 1800s where people starved to death and took mercury as medicine while bleeding you and in a place without ambulances and even basic first aid knowledge. It’s not insignificant, it’s just disappointing in my eyes. And remember, life expectancy in the US has been DECREASING.[/quote]

That’s because the US has a shitty healthcare system (besides other sociopolitical problems). I don’t think you guys lack medical knowledge (the top journals are still from the US), but you have a distribution problem. How many people can afford to consultation of a specialist for a “common problem”. Wouldn’t a country like Norway be a much better indicator land? Free health care, tons of money from oil rigs etc.?

Again, 10 years increased life expectancy is a lot. How many strokes occur in the population from 20-70years, and how many occur from 70-80years. It’s way harder to get a person from 70 to 80 years than from 60-70 years.
Or lets see it from this viewpoint: a caveman can become 50 years, when he doens’t get eaten by a saber tooth tiger. So the total life-expectancy increase in the last 30.000 years was only 30years. And an increased of 30% through “just” 200years modern medicine seems a lot to me. [/quote]

Actually, for treatment of conditions from heart disease to cancer, there is no better healthcare than the US. It you have a condition, you are pretty much better off here than anywhere else in the world including “free” healthcare places. We just have more conditions.

And if people were to guess at the increase, I’m positive they’d guess more than 10. I would have.

29

Now I took a closer look at the chart Dr. Pangloss posted and it seems like both of you guys didn’t understand it. Life expectancy has increased a lot since the 1850s. Let’s focus on white males, the top rows of the chart, for simplicity.

The life expectancy was 38 years in 1850 and it steadily increased to 75 years in 2004. An increased of 37 years might be the amount most people would guess. If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, look up the general definition of life expectancy.

A person who reached the age of 80 in 1850 had a much more robust health than a 80 years old today, because he had to survive way greater obstacle. Still, his weaker pendant has a 25% higher life expectancy (8y vs 6y) at the same age, due to our technological advances. Don’t believe me? Go to a retirement home and i bet with you, there wouldn’t be two residents who could survive longer then a month in 1850.

30

[quote]Andy63477 wrote:
Now I took a closer look at the chart Dr. Pangloss posted and it seems like both of you guys didn’t understand it. Life expectancy has increased a lot since the 1850s. Let’s focus on white males, the top rows of the chart, for simplicity.

The life expectancy was 38 years in 1850 and it steadily increased to 75 years in 2004. An increased of 37 years might be the amount most people would guess. If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, look up the general definition of life expectancy.

A person who reached the age of 80 in 1850 had a much more robust health than a 80 years old today, because he had to survive way greater obstacle. Still, his weaker pendant has a 25% higher life expectancy (8y vs 6y) at the same age, due to our technological advances. Don’t believe me? Go to a retirement home and i bet with you, there wouldn’t be two residents who could survive longer then a month in 1850.
[/quote]

My initial comment was about adult life expectancy.

@ 30 years old, there is like a 12 year difference. @ 40 its 10, @50 it’s 8, est.

Most of the 38 year increase comes by the age of 10. Meaning, children have a much higher survival rate now.

And it numbers went to the present, we’d see them start to fall.

My point is that people have the impression with the average life expectancy of 38, we think they were old by 40. They weren’t. A 40 year old in 1850 averaged another 30 years, which isn’t all that different than today, even though we have double overall life expectancy. Adult health isn’t nearly as different as most people think. Back then, a lot of really young people died, hence the low average.

Hell, if you want to get really technical and included aborted kids, average life expectancy is probably lower today overall for a human life.

31

You look at healthly adults (whoever reaches the age of 30 without medical help, doesn’t have any severe deseases), who don’t need medical treatment, and wonder why the developement of health care has such a “small” impact on their life expectancy.

12 years difference @ 30 years is a 25% longer life, which i consider a lot. The human body isn’t built to last forever.

32

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
This drug was wrongly prescribed to a family member and led to this syndrome which killed him very quickly. If a family member is on gout medication make sure you check the effects.

Drug Allopurinol - Wikipedia

Syndrome: Stevens–Johnson syndrome - Wikipedia [/quote]
Stevens Johnson syndrome is an acute allergic reaction that can happen from the result of taking almost any medication. It has nothing to do with taking allopurinol.

Before you start spouting medical knowledge at least make sure its accurate.

[/quote]

That’s never stopped anybody from being an armchair Doctor on this forum before DT.

Everybody is an “expert” until an actual medical professional like yourself calls them out.

33

[quote]Andy63477 wrote:
You look at healthly adults (whoever reaches the age of 30 without medical help, doesn’t have any severe deseases), who don’t need medical treatment, and wonder why the developement of health care has such a “small” impact on their life expectancy.

12 years difference @ 30 years is a 25% longer life, which i consider a lot. The human body isn’t built to last forever.[/quote]

It’s like a 15 percent total lifespan increase at 30. And I don’t know of many 8 year olds that we would have lost in 1850 that are saved by bypass surgery or stroke treatment today, so yeah, I’d expect a bigger increase.

34

[quote]UtahLama wrote:

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
This drug was wrongly prescribed to a family member and led to this syndrome which killed him very quickly. If a family member is on gout medication make sure you check the effects.

Drug Allopurinol - Wikipedia

Syndrome: Stevens–Johnson syndrome - Wikipedia [/quote]
Stevens Johnson syndrome is an acute allergic reaction that can happen from the result of taking almost any medication. It has nothing to do with taking allopurinol.

Before you start spouting medical knowledge at least make sure its accurate.

[/quote]

That’s never stopped anybody from being an armchair Doctor on this forum before DT.

Everybody is an “expert” until an actual medical professional like yourself calls them out.
[/quote]

“Allopurinol, a commonly prescribed medication for gout and hyperuricemia, is a frequent cause of severe cutaneous adverse reactions (SCAR), which include the drug hypersensitivity syndrome, Stevensâ??Johnson syndrome, and toxic epidermal necrolysis. The adverse events are unpredictable and carry significant morbidity and mortality.”

35

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:

[quote]UtahLama wrote:

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
This drug was wrongly prescribed to a family member and led to this syndrome which killed him very quickly. If a family member is on gout medication make sure you check the effects.

Drug Allopurinol - Wikipedia

Syndrome: Stevens–Johnson syndrome - Wikipedia [/quote]
Stevens Johnson syndrome is an acute allergic reaction that can happen from the result of taking almost any medication. It has nothing to do with taking allopurinol.

Before you start spouting medical knowledge at least make sure its accurate.

[/quote]

That’s never stopped anybody from being an armchair Doctor on this forum before DT.

Everybody is an “expert” until an actual medical professional like yourself calls them out.
[/quote]

“Allopurinol, a commonly prescribed medication for gout and hyperuricemia, is a frequent cause of severe cutaneous adverse reactions (SCAR), which include the drug hypersensitivity syndrome, Stevensâ??Johnson syndrome, and toxic epidermal necrolysis. The adverse events are unpredictable and carry significant morbidity and mortality.”

[/quote]
It has been prescribed for a long time. Every drug has a side effects profile that would scare the lay person.

If it was a danger to the public it would be pulled believe me every lawyer in the country looks for this stuff.

36

Yes but to say it has nothing to do with allopurinol when it has been linked is not accurate.

37

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
Yes but to say it has nothing to do with allopurinol when it has been linked is not accurate.[/quote]
Whatever man. I have a clinic to run.

Dont take any meds or get vaccinated.

I love darwin

38

What are you talking about? I respect modern medicine and I respect those who practice your profession. I am not here to bash the medical field this was a discussion on human error in the medical field.

Sir, maybe from your professional experience nothing bad has occurred using the drug. But from my experience someone close to me died taking the drug. Knowledge about side effects is not a bad thing. Sorry if I offended you in anyway. My apologies.

39

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
Sir, maybe from your professional experience nothing bad has occurred using the drug. But from my experience someone close to me died taking the drug. Knowledge about side effects is not a bad thing. Sorry if I offended you in anyway. My apologies.[/quote]

And what I said earlier was that said things happen. Understandably, you’re upset about an adverse event. But it’s still frontline therapy for gout. Between taking chances of adverse reaction on the standard of care or enduring a guaranteed painful and progressive disease, what would the choice be?

Medical error is certainly a big deal. But I don’t think this qualifies as an example. It’s certainly also not something that’s shrugged off. Before every procedure, there’s consent and a time out. There are sign offs to deliver medication. You mention handwashing being able to stop hospital acquired infections. I haven’t been in a hospital or clinic that doesn’t have hand sanitizer outside or a sink inside every room.

An example of medical negligence is not following the appropriate guideline when a patient is going septic. It’s giving a steroid when a patient needs antibiotics, or giving antibiotics when a patient needs steroids. Most of these are judgment calls based on clinical picture. They’re soft and variable in real time but often obvious errors in hindsight.

I’m not saying that medical error is not a concern. What I’m saying is that your perception of what’s wrong with medical care isn’t exactly where the big problems lie.

40

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:

Are these numbers accurate :s[/quote]

No.

There is no question that there are medical errors.
There is no question that medical errors lead to morbidity and death.

There is also no question that the studies cited, and in particular the IOM study, are nonsense. The published criticisms of these studies are sound. The assumptions and methodology make them useless and politicized.

Pause and think for a moment: if there were 98,000 excess deaths per year, the cemeteries would be overflowing. People would be dying to get in.