Medical Errors and Doctor Intimidation Medical errors are an important challenge and concern facing medical professionals. Although not a new phenomenon the incidences of medical errors are estimated at about 200,000 per year. It is also expected that about 1/3 of medical errors go unreported and the same amount of hospital visits lead to hospital related injuries (Corrigan, Donaldson and Kohn, 2000). It doesn't take a mathematician to realize that the amount of medical errors is unnecessarily high, as it is suggested that 44,000 preventable deaths occur each year from medical errors, making it the 8th leading cause of death (Corrigan, Donaldson and Kohn, 2000). Should hospitals take steps to reduce medical errors? Absolutely, doing anything less would be sheer negligence. Far too many lives are at stake to not take all necessary steps to prevent avoidable errors. This paper will address challenges faced in the quest to reduce medical errors as well as the daunting issue of doctor intimidation.

Without a doubt, hospitals need to take all feasible steps to reduce the occurrence of medical errors and while most would agree;...

Medical facilities are faced with numerous issues including staffing shortages and lack of funds that would be necessary to implement technology and procedures necessary to aid in the reduction of medical errors. In addition, patients are not always forthcoming or truthful about their medical history and may be administered medicines or treatment that can induce an adverse reaction; all which could be prevented if the medical history of the patient is known before treatment begins.
Staffing shortages is quite possibly the single largest impediment in any effort to reduce medical errors. Inadequate staff means that patients will not receive the care they need, staff pressed for time is more likely to overlook key indicators in a patient's health and not have the time required to adequately access, diagnose and provide the proper care for a patients. Patients perceive the single biggest cause of medical errors (at 43%) to be overworked staff or staff shortages, low staffed hospitals with large numbers of patients will suffer avoidable adverse outcomes and patients will…