Those numbers have been around for a while and debated. If you have a crappy MD you should probably look for a new one. I have questioned the accuracy of the data. What exactly are they considering an accidental death? Where the MD actually screwed up or the patient died and could not be saved do to no bodys fault?
It is funny how we never see the data for judges and lawyers, how many people they kill each year by turning criminals back out on the street. Two little girls are dead in FL because two criminals were out that should have never seen the light of day, but you dont see any judge or lawyer getting raked over the coals for it. Yet take some MD who has been up for 36-72 hours with out sleep and make a mistake and see what happens to them. Trust me, they dont keep those hours by choice. It is funny how we wont let airline pilots or truch drivers operate vehicles or fly after so many hours, but is is ok to have MDs work endless hours with out any sleep. If there is anyone here that can say they could do their job for 36+ hours and not make a mistake, maby you should go into medicine to improve the stats.
We almost lost our vascular surgeon a couple weeks ago, because he had been up for a couple days with out sleep. He was on his way to a rural clinic to see patients and fell asleep at the wheel. Lucky for him he had on his seatbelt and only had minor injuries. Vehicle was totaled.
I practice in rural America, we have 2 MDs and a PA to cover call 24/7 and operate a busy rural health clinic and hospital. Do the math there. One of my call days last week I admitted 5 patients to the hospital, saw 16 patients in clinic, and saw 8 parients in the ER all from 0700-0700. Of the 8 in ER 3 were critical, (2 chest pains at the same time). I got to lay down for 45 minutes from midnight to 0045, I was up the rest of the night. I got off call at 0700 went home showered and was back in clinic to a full sched at 0800. I got 15 minutes for lunch and finally got off work at 1745. I had not seen my kids in over 24 hours, I had supper with my family, read a couple stories to the kids, tried to go to bed and got called 3 times for questions that could have waited till the next day. Ended up getting 6 hours of sleep and went on call again at 0700 the next day. The sad part is that we get paid for a 40 hour work week, the other 20+ hours are just lost, no comp time no nothing. Yep some mistakes are made, I have made them, but I thank God nobody has ever been hurt because of them.
I always tell my students, you can be a cop and shoot an unarmed man 40 times and people make excuses for you that the job is dangerous, and you have to make judgement calls in a split second and sometimes these things happen. But be a health care provider who's has been up for hours on end, trying to be 3 or 4 places at the same time, taking care of a trauma and two chest pains and make a mistake and there is no excuse, and you can bet there will be a line of people to grill your a$$.
More important than a set of numbers is the reason behind the numbers.
