It is often quoted “Practice makes every one perfect” . . . Doctors continue to practice for ever . . .If practice is only a rehearsal , when do they perform for real ?
And , we know a doctor spends his entire life time practicing . . . In other words doctors are only experimenting .
So , do not get fooled by his errors . Errors are bound to happen during their practicing sessions !
The problem with general public is , they never understand this basic fact – medical science is nothing but a , on going research on human body .If only we understand this we can accept the millions of medical mistakes* that occur every day in the global medical profession . The major aim of modern medical science is to reduce that .
* Of course, negligence is a punishable offense . But, we should also realise , non- negligent medical mistakes are many fold higher than negligent ones .
While a careful doctor will avoid negligent mistakes a thinking doctor will avoid non -negligent mistakes also.
This puts onus back on doctors. We need to critically analyse , every
treatment modality we follow .
If you are a strong believer of “Medicine is indeed a science and doctors are scientists ” , please read this article from British medical journal and conclude yourself.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/328/7454/0-h
Further reading
The bestseller How doctors think
Picture courtesy : Jupeter stock Images
Dr.S.Venkatesan MD 