Medical Errors and Misdiagnosis

“Island woman granted second chance at life after jumping from ferry”
(CTV Vancouver Island — December 7, 2017)
Mya DeRyan had a plan.  She would jump from a ferry to Nanaimo into the frigid October water to end more than a year of suffering from what she was told was a terminal illness.
More on Canada

“New Survey Finds 21 Percent of Americans Report Personal Experience with Medical Errors”
(September 28, 2017)
The survey further finds that, when errors do occur, they often have lasting impact on the patient’s physical health, emotional health, financial well-being, or family relationships.
Beyond personally experiencing errors, 31 percent of Americans report that someone else whose care they were closely involved with experienced an error.
Most respondents believe that, while health care providers are chiefly responsible for patient safety, patients and their families also have a role to play.

“VA conceals shoddy care and health workers’ mistakes”
(USA Today — October 13, 2017)
A USA TODAY investigation found the VA — the nation’s largest employer of health care workers — has for years concealed mistakes and misdeeds by staff members entrusted with the care of veterans.
In some cases, agency managers do not report troubled practitioners to the National Practitioner Data Bank, making it easier for them to keep working with patients elsewhere. The agency also failed to ensure VA hospitals reported disciplined providers to state licensing boards.

“Medical errors may kill 250,000 a year, but problem not being tracked”
(Modern Healthcare — May 4, 2016)
A study published in the BMJ found that medical mistakes in the U.S. trailed heart disease and cancer.

“Inside Canada’s secret world of medical error: “There is a lot of lying, there’s a lot of cover-up”
(National Post — January 16, 2015, updated March 2)
Most instances of the system hurting rather than healing patients are not even reported by staff internally, a National Post investigation has documented.
Research suggests that about 70,000 patients a year experience preventable, serious injury as a result of treatments.
By contrast, preventable injury and deaths in many other arenas — from homicides to industrial accidents and road crashes — are routinely divulged by police or other authorities.

“12 million Americans misdiagnosed each year”
(CBS News — April 17, 2014)
Each year in the U.S. approximately 12 million adults who seek outpatient medical care are misdiagnosed…This figure amounts to 1 out of 20 adult patients