Covering up a Medical Error, Essay Example

Overall, as a health care administrator and depending on the situation, I would recommend that some medical errors should be concealed, especially if the given medical error did not directly affect the health of a patient or place him/her in some type of immediate danger. As noted by Dr. Howard Brody of Michigan State University, dealing with medical errors and mistakes is as old as the profession of medicine itself. But unlike in the past when most physicians dealt with medical errors and mistakes by remaining quiet and denying that the incident ever occurred, today’s physicians and health care administrators usually adhere to different ethical standards that require the disclosure of medical errors to the proper authorities, particularly when errors negatively affect the health of patients (2006).

Although a majority of physicians and health care/hospital administrators (60.1%) feel that it is never acceptable to cover up a medical error regardless of its potential impact on safety and care, the remaining 40% would indeed cover up a medical error provided it did not cause harm to the patient (Weiss, 2011). One major reason for the majority’s opinion on reporting all medical errors is that a failure to do so negatively affects the physician-patient relationship. However, under most circumstances, some physicians feel that “the disclosure of error might harm the patient more than benefit the patient,” such as causing some type of emotional trauma (Weiss, 2011).

Some of the arguments posed by physicians and administrators in favor of withholding information on medical errors are mostly based upon ordinary common sense. For instance, if a particular medical error does not result in harm to a patient’s health but holds the potential to greatly upset the patient via creating anxiety and stress, then the medical error should be concealed from the patient. Also, some physicians and administrators feel that simple medical errors should be withheld from the patient, such as giving a patient 650 mg of Tylenol instead of 325 mg or perhaps giving too little of a particular medication. In addition, since the relationship between a physician and a patient (or in many cases, a nurse and a patient) is so important, some feel that telling a patient about a trivial medical error lowers his/her trust in the physician and the entire medical team (Weiss, 2011).

Certainly, withholding information on a medical error from a patient could make all of the difference if the patient is prone to emotional distress. For example, as Weiss points out, when some patients “hear of a mistake, they start imagining problems that likely wouldn’t exist” if the medical error had not been revealed to them (2011). But of course, everything is dependent on how a patient would react to being told about a medical error. According to an unidentified hospital administrator, “It all depends on what kind of mistake has been made and whether revealing a harmless error would raise patient anxieties,” especially if the patient is slated to receive important and necessary treatment or invasive surgery (2011).

Overall, concealing a medical error from a patient should be done if the error or mistake does not cause harm to the patient. Also, simple or irrelevant medical errors should not be revealed to the patient if they hold the potential to “cause irreparable harm to the physician-patient relationship” (Weiss, 2011). Perhaps the best course of action for a physician or health care administrator is to consider the advice given in most medical textbooks in relation to simple medical errors–say nothing about the error to the patient unless he/she explicitly asks about it (Brody, 2006).

References

Brody, H. (2006). Confronting a colleague who covers up a medical error. American Family Physician (73) 7: 1272-1274. Retrieved from http://www.aafp.org/afp/2006/0401/p1272.html

Weiss, G.G. (2011). Some worms are best left in the can: Should you hide medical errors? Retrieved from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/735033