It's one thing to talk about the numbers and percentages related to all the mistakes made, more often than you'd expect, in an American medical setting. However, it's quite another to watch what happens when one mistake sets off a chain reaction of surgeries, and almost all of them were for nothing, as described in this heart-rending video (link below).
After a routine dental checkup identified a mass in a young mother's jaw, she was referred to a specialist who, then, promptly removed it. Her real problems began after the lab used by the specialist misdiagnosed the mass as an aggressive form of cancer, prompting a battery of needless treatments and a terminal prognosis.
The last thing you want to do is go through the needless trauma this woman went through as a result of a mistaken diagnosis which is why you simply must take better responsibility for your own health today.
Metacafe November 17, 2006Wall Street Journal November 29, 2006