Errors, Medicine and the Law by Alan Merry

by Alexander McCall Smith

Untoward injuries are unacceptably common in medical treatment, at times with tragic consequences for patients. The phrases an epidemic of error and the medical toll have been coined to describe this problem of iatrogenic harm , which it has been suggested may have contributed to 98,000 deaths per year in the US. Some of these incidents are the result of negligence on the part of doctors, but more usually they are no more than inevitable concomitants of the complexity of modern healthcare. This book is fundamentally about distinguishing the former from the latter. Although medicine is used as the book s primary example, the points made apply equally to aviation, industrial activities, and many other fields of human endeavour. The book advocates a more informed alternative to the blaming culture which has increasingly come to dominate our response to accidents, whether in the medical field or elsewhere.

Paperback

First published August 16, 2001

About the author

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the international phenomenon The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie Series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, and the 44 Scotland Street series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served on many national and international bodies concerned with bioethics. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and he was a law professor at the University of Botswana. He lives in Scotland. Visit him online at www.alexandermccallsmith.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Reviews

[Khalid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written. It breaks down in an understandable manner the psychology and processes involved in Medical Errors, although applicable to anything. It also lays out how one tends to respond to errors and the processes involved, which has a significant impact on what follows.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Simplified, basic presentation of moral philosophy in relation to the practice of medicine. Easy to read.