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Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

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Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#121

Post by TaupeRanger »

ncmncm wrote: post #71
simonh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just flawed argument, but wildly inaccurate data that was then grossly misapplied. Unfortunately a lot of people on HN will just read the headline and think this is true, when it's very far from being the case. I wish we could link this whole thread to the refutation instead of further propagating this misinformation.

We don't know whether it is the case or not. It could just as easily be worse than it says. Probably is. If I had to tell you about all the medical mistakes experienced by just my immediate family, just the facts, I would be at it all day long.

Unless the mistakes led to death that wouldn't have otherwise occurred in a similar timeframe, the anecdotes wouldn't even be relevant.

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#122

Post by willcipriano »

q1w2 wrote: post #91
willcipriano wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What qualifies as a medical error? If we just classified things that are obvious. Wrong medication applied (ie paper says to deliver 10mg of Advil but you got a vitamin C tablet), wrong leg amputated, wrong patient data looked at leading to a bad diagnosis. We would likely find a large number of incidents, however no way on earth will you get the American medical cartel to report on them honestly.

Calling doctors, collectively, the "American medical cartel" isn't helpful language. It's just more polarizing politics that breaks down constructive dialogue.

Don't behave like a cartel if you don't want to be called one.

From limiting residency slots, making it nearly impossible to hire foreign doctors and lobbying for safe medications that are sold over the counter in the rest of the world to be sold as prescription only in the US. Just to name a few, the AMA has served it's members well to the detriment of anyone buying healthcare in the United States. That to me is a cartel, they just use a "certificate of need" to enforce it's will rather than a gun.

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#123

Post by TaupeRanger »

nenadst wrote: post #26

apparently based on very flawed arguments https://gidmk.medium.com/medical-error-is-not-the-third-lead...

Exactly. Every time I come to a medical thread on HN I realize how bad even intelligent people are at understanding medical statistics and recognizing when to raise an eyebrow of skepticism. It really does take a lot of study and/or professional training to develop those skills.

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#125

Post by jodrellblank »

KineticLensman wrote: post #100
numlock86 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think "age" is a valid cause of death. Uhm, considering our technological advancement in the medical sector I'd argue "age" should be the only valid cause of death. Sadly it isn't for obvious reasons (firearms, car crashes, everything else related to safety etc., hunger, lack of medical equipment and supplies etc. etc. etc.) ... and ironically the article is one of those causes that could and should be easi…

> Uhm, considering our technological advancement in the medical sector I'd argue "age" should be the only valid cause of death. For this to be true we would have to be able to predict and treat every possible disease and condition, wherever it occurred. When I had my Ventricular Fibrillation event I was lucky that it occurred just outside the door of a place that had a defibrillator. If it had occurred twenty minutes…

> "No amount of credible technological advancement would have saved me then."

Assuming there was a cause of your fibrillation; maybe advancement in imaging and detection could have spotted worsening rhythm or small damage developing in the heart, or growing chemical imbalance in time before it happened, and given you an Implantable defibrillator[1] in advance, or a hypothetical wearable one, or treatment to repair the damage and avoid it happening.

I sometimes wonder what it would take in terms of FutureTech to "save everyone"; how about if you were alone but concsious, defibrillator tech builtin to every vehicle (electric vehicles at least have some high voltage power already; sensing and cables wouldn't be a big addition to them) would have got a treatment close enough to be useful. If you were unconscious and wearing a watch with ECG features, it could detect you falling over and alert somewhere, a defibrillator drone takes off, today's fast drones can do 50+mph it could have spikes to get through your clothing and be alerting a telemedicine doctor to remote view it...

I suppose we have to rule out teleportation, but humanoid robots are fairly credible, suffusing the planetary surface with nanotech is uncomfortably credible and that possibly changes a lot. e.g. blood additives which carry much more oxygen and can keep your brain alive after your heart stops pumping until help can arrive, or etc.

[1] https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/arrhythmia/prevention...

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#126

Post by danachow »

willcipriano wrote: post #122
q1w2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling doctors, collectively, the "American medical cartel" isn't helpful language. It's just more polarizing politics that breaks down constructive dialogue.

Don't behave like a cartel if you don't want to be called one. From limiting residency slots, making it nearly impossible to hire foreign doctors and lobbying for safe medications that are sold over the counter in the rest of the world to be sold as prescription only in the US. Just to name a few, the AMA has served it's members well to the detriment of anyone buying healthcare in the United States. That to me is a c…

Anytime someone mentions the AMA I just have to ignore them completely. It’s not that the AMA hasn’t done some shady shit throughout the years (especially the 60s), it’s just that in 2022 they are so close to irrelevant that painting them as a boogieman merely shows that your name information is about 50 years out of date. The “medical cartel” as you call it is more and more getting shaped by a number or powerful interest groups none of which are the AMA that is pushing somewhat successfully for fewer doctors in most specialities.

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#127

Post by giantg2 »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #104
rscho wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gather you are not a healthcare professional, hence the artificial dichotomy stemming from your perception as an outsider. Medical competency is very difficult to assess objectively. You're good/bad because people say so. There isn't any form of performance feedback.

How can that be? A patient gets diagnosed. There's treatment. There's an outcome. That can't be measured? And assessed? There's data flowing all over the place. But perhaps the lawyers and the insurance stand in the way of improvement?

There are too many variables. You could have two people with the same diagnosis but one has a complication. Even if you do everything 'right' the success isn't 100% because there are slight variations in people and diseases.

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#128

Post by andreareina »

fantasticshower wrote: post #33
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s apparently so important and busy that he has to make these videos while driving in his super car from point A to point B. 15 years ago, this “content” would have been a blog post, which we could have skimmed in 30 seconds to get the gist of the counter argument. Now it’s a 10 minute video with no notes, buried behind 2 ads. Next time, give us a 2 sentence summarization of the argument you’re linking.

Can you spare the rest of us and give the aforementioned two sentence summarization?

- the claim is absurd on its face: that's more deaths than from road traffic accidents, half as much as from all cancer, and accounts for a significant proportion of the number of people who die in the hospital for all causes (and would be the number one reason

- the figures come from studies with methodological issues (non-representative populations, overly-broad criteria for what's counted as a death from medical error)

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#130

Post by gitfan86 »

giantg2 wrote: post #67

“Incidence rates for deaths directly attributable to medical care gone awry haven’t been recognized in any standardized method for collecting national statistics,” That's because they're hard to standardize. What qualifies as a medical error? It's easy to go back after the fact and analyze a case where someone has a poor outcome and say 'we should have done this another way'. That doesn't mean there was any indicatio…

There is a big difference between a perfectly healthy 18 year old accidentally receiving a lethal dose of fentanyl instead of 400mg of Tylenol AND a 95 year old not having a mole removal rescheduled after the Doctors office was closed for a day unexpectedly. Both things are errors. And both could lead to death.
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