Avoidable deaths and harm due to medical negligence

Published on November 28, 2019   45 min

A selection of talks on Clinical Practice

Please wait while the transcript is being prepared...
0:00
Hello, I'm Aubrey Milunsky. I'm the founder and co-director with my son of this non-profit Center for Human Genetics in Cambridge. Currently, I'm an adjunct professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Tufts University School of Medicine, and in the past many years, I have been a professor of human genetics, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and pathology. So, today, we're going to be talking about avoidable deaths and harm due to medical negligence. All the insights that I'll be sharing with you and the lessons that I've learned and want to share comes from vast experience in the United States courts. I have appeared and testified in more than 100 trials, and have evaluated and reviewed close to 2,000 cases of claimed medical negligence. So, the subject is highly relevant to all people who are planning to be or going to be patients, which turns out to be all of us, short of sudden death. We all know, of course, that physicians are guided by a particular code of conduct, and we expect from them skill, knowledge, trust, sensitivity and, of course, a certain empathy and respect. So, recognizing all of that, we're going to tackle this particular subject which of course is concerning to all of us. First, let me turn to the next slide.
1:39
We will be talking about medical negligence in the following areas. First, we'll discuss the importance and the frequency with which medical negligence occurs. Then, we'll talk about the reasons both individual and systemic, followed by the cost and the causes. We will address the questions of cognitive psychology, decision-making, bias, critical thinking, and clinical reasoning. After that, we will discuss the responsible authorities and I have some recommendations. All of the slides that we're talking about have their origins in actual legal cases in many states in the United States. None of them are theoretical; they are all real. The only slide that is perhaps not real is on my recommendations right at the end, but I think they are real.
Hide

Avoidable deaths and harm due to medical negligence

Embed in course/own notes