Top Screwups Doctors Make and How to Avoid Them

" A primary care doctor is skeptical of his patient's concerns. A hospital nurse or intern is unaware of a drug's potential side effects. A physician makes the most common diagnosis while overlooking the signs of a rarer and more serious illness, and the patient doesn't see the necessary specialist until it's too late. A pharmacist dispenses the wrong drug and a patient dies as a result. b>adly, these kinds of mistakes happen all the time. Each year, 6.1 million Americans are harmed by diagnostic mistakes, drug disasters, and medical treatments. A decade ago, the Institute of Medicine estimated that up to 98,000 people died in hospitals each year from preventable medical errors. And new research from the University of Utah, HealthGrades of Denver, and elsewhere suggests the toll is much higher. atient advocates and bestselling authors Joe and Teresa Graedon came face-to-face with the tragic consequences of doctors' screwups when Joe's mother died in Duke Hospital one of the best in the world due to a disastrous series of entirely preventable errors. In Top Screwups Doctors Make and How to Avoid Them, the Graedons expose the most common medical mistakes, f