HopkinsMedStudent
Thinker
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2003
- Messages
- 210
Where are they getting the 120k number of accidental deaths from?
The Institute of Medicine released a report, but I thought the number was "only" 80k, and that the 80k figure indluced ALL SOURCES OF MEDICAL MISTAKES, including doctor mistakes, patient mistakes, nurse mistakes, system-wide errors, etc.
The Institute of Medicine released a report, but I thought the number was "only" 80k, and that the 80k figure indluced ALL SOURCES OF MEDICAL MISTAKES, including doctor mistakes, patient mistakes, nurse mistakes, system-wide errors, etc.
Brian the Snail
Muse
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2002
- Messages
- 962
Hmmm, what about deliberate gun deaths? Do they not count?
pgwenthold
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2001
- Messages
- 21,821
Brian the Snail said:
Moreover, what about the alternative. Suppose those 700000 physicians stop being physicians. Then how many will die? Millions maybe?
At the same time, how many will die as a result of eliminating all guns from gun owners? Call it the same, even though it isn't true.
So in that scenerios, doctors save millions of lives compared to doctors, whereas guns save none.
Sounds like doctors are infinitely better than guns to me.
pgwenthold said:
I have to agree that the doctor vs guns message is rather stupid. But anyone who ever brandished a gun to drive away an intruder may take exception to "whereas guns save none." statement. Guns do not have to kill when used to save a life or protect property.
Ranb
YIKES!!! That reminds me!!! I'm supposed to be writing a paper for Claus (www.skepticreport.com) about this.
Basically, think of it this way, everyone in that scenario did not go into the hospital healthy. (In other words, add up all the numbers of injuries and figure out where those people went to get treatment... the hospital!!) So, you are essentially putting hospitalizations/doctor treatments as a numerator when it is actually the denominator. Make sense?
In other words (and among other problems with this dataset), the premise that this "study" was built on and draws its conclusions from is classic fallacy of the complex cause. Sure, there are medical errors (rates of which have substantially improved in recent years with improved communication systems, near error-proof pharmacy ordering procedures, avoidance of dangerous abbreviations, etc.) and the systems continue getting better.
However, the underlying premise this "study" fails to entertain (and which makes it flawed) is that doctors did not go out into the street and pull healthy people into the hospital and kill them. They came to the hospital because they were already sick and/or in need of service. And, "hastening death" when death was already inevitable (and sometimes is actually an act of kindness) is treated as a physician error, depending on who and how the the accounting is done. Furthermore, many of the extrapolations in this study are based on flawed datasets and non-representative samples, in certain cases.
This would be landmark study if, in fact, the people entering the hospital WERE healthy and came out sicker or were killed.
Here's a link to a good, in-depth retort to the original "Death by Medicine" article by the notorious quack, Gary Null:
http://www.geocities.com/healthbase/null_hypothesis_laidler.html
Happy reading.
-TT
Basically, think of it this way, everyone in that scenario did not go into the hospital healthy. (In other words, add up all the numbers of injuries and figure out where those people went to get treatment... the hospital!!) So, you are essentially putting hospitalizations/doctor treatments as a numerator when it is actually the denominator. Make sense?
In other words (and among other problems with this dataset), the premise that this "study" was built on and draws its conclusions from is classic fallacy of the complex cause. Sure, there are medical errors (rates of which have substantially improved in recent years with improved communication systems, near error-proof pharmacy ordering procedures, avoidance of dangerous abbreviations, etc.) and the systems continue getting better.
However, the underlying premise this "study" fails to entertain (and which makes it flawed) is that doctors did not go out into the street and pull healthy people into the hospital and kill them. They came to the hospital because they were already sick and/or in need of service. And, "hastening death" when death was already inevitable (and sometimes is actually an act of kindness) is treated as a physician error, depending on who and how the the accounting is done. Furthermore, many of the extrapolations in this study are based on flawed datasets and non-representative samples, in certain cases.
This would be landmark study if, in fact, the people entering the hospital WERE healthy and came out sicker or were killed.
Here's a link to a good, in-depth retort to the original "Death by Medicine" article by the notorious quack, Gary Null:
http://www.geocities.com/healthbase/null_hypothesis_laidler.html
Happy reading.
-TT
Wrath of the Swarm
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2004
- Messages
- 1,855
I lack the data to argue for either side... but if the patients went in sick and came out worse, or died, because of medical interventions, that certainly counts.
The rate of medical error is frighteningly high; noscomial infections alone are a good reason to avoid entering the hospital unless it's absolutely necessary.
Considering the great difficulty in persuading doctors checking up on post-surgery patients to wash their hands (!), hospitals aren't friendly places to be.
The rate of medical error is frighteningly high; noscomial infections alone are a good reason to avoid entering the hospital unless it's absolutely necessary.
Considering the great difficulty in persuading doctors checking up on post-surgery patients to wash their hands (!), hospitals aren't friendly places to be.
Wrath of the Swarm said:
It happens, but not as much as this article leads one to believe. And, again, it's certainly not the "leading cause of morbidity and mortality." The sad truth is that many people who check into the hospital will not every check out, and often we feel the need to blame someone. Sometimes the blame is justified, many times it's not.
Since you admit you don't have the data, read the rebuttal I posted above. It has a link to the original article. It is a very sound reckoning of the flaws in the original "study".
-TT
EdipisReks
Custom Title
i take umbrage with the statement that guns don't save lives. guns save a LOT of lives.
kookbreaker
Evil Fokker
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2001
- Messages
- 15,889
HopkinsMedStudent said:
Somone tell Peter Bowditch, on his site he explains his remarkableprecognition
These folks just keep jacking up their invented numbers.
Suezoled said:
I'd have to say doctors save more lives than guns. As much as I enjoy my gun collection, I have to say I can use a good doctor more than a good gun. I'm really really glad doctors were able to patch me back up after I crushed my ankle falling off of a waterfall I was climbing.
Ranb
"Of course they could have just treated you like a racehorse and shot you."
That was a good one. It reminds me of when I was at the TAMC in Hawaii waiting for 6 hours to pass since my last meal before the doctors could put me under for surgery to repair my crushed ankle. I was laying on a bed in a treatment room separated from another patient by a curtain. I was hooked up to an IV, on pain meds which barely worked and trying to ingore the pain in my splinted ankle. The female patient across from me was having a fit because she was not allowed to go home. I heard a doctor say, "Ma'am, if you bite me one more time I'm going to put you in a straitjacket." As she alternated between begging to go home and threatening the doctor with violence, I heard the doctor tell a corpsman to get a straitjacket for her.
I was worried that she would get loose and start trashing the place and that I would be unable to defend myself. As she was being restrained, an ortho doctor came in to talk to me about my treatment. After asking how long I would be in traction, he smiled and said I was to badly injured for traction, they would have to put me into surgery to put eveyrthing back together. In a way, this was a bit comforting, becuase I knew I did not want a hole drilled into my heel so a rod and wire could be used to pull the bones back into place.
I asked what was wrong with the woman on the other side of the curtain. I will never forget what he said as he smiled. "She doesn't have any broken bones, so I don't give a ◊◊◊◊." I never heard those kind of words coming fro a dotor before. I laughed a bit myself than calmed down a bit as the activity subsided on the other side of the curtain. Shortly after, I was given a spinal which took away all of the pain, then a sedative which caused me to nearly pass out until 2 hours later after the surgery was over.
Ranb
That was a good one. It reminds me of when I was at the TAMC in Hawaii waiting for 6 hours to pass since my last meal before the doctors could put me under for surgery to repair my crushed ankle. I was laying on a bed in a treatment room separated from another patient by a curtain. I was hooked up to an IV, on pain meds which barely worked and trying to ingore the pain in my splinted ankle. The female patient across from me was having a fit because she was not allowed to go home. I heard a doctor say, "Ma'am, if you bite me one more time I'm going to put you in a straitjacket." As she alternated between begging to go home and threatening the doctor with violence, I heard the doctor tell a corpsman to get a straitjacket for her.
I was worried that she would get loose and start trashing the place and that I would be unable to defend myself. As she was being restrained, an ortho doctor came in to talk to me about my treatment. After asking how long I would be in traction, he smiled and said I was to badly injured for traction, they would have to put me into surgery to put eveyrthing back together. In a way, this was a bit comforting, becuase I knew I did not want a hole drilled into my heel so a rod and wire could be used to pull the bones back into place.
I asked what was wrong with the woman on the other side of the curtain. I will never forget what he said as he smiled. "She doesn't have any broken bones, so I don't give a ◊◊◊◊." I never heard those kind of words coming fro a dotor before. I laughed a bit myself than calmed down a bit as the activity subsided on the other side of the curtain. Shortly after, I was given a spinal which took away all of the pain, then a sedative which caused me to nearly pass out until 2 hours later after the surgery was over.
Ranb
Johnny Pneumatic
Master Poster
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2003
- Messages
- 2,088
Ranb said:
How high? I climbed a 3 meter one. the rocks were covered in liverworts.
The waterfall I fell off of was no more than 7 meters high. I fell as I was resting a bit on the way down. I do not think I fell more than 3 meters. The rock face was wet and slimey, I was not a good climber; sounds like an accident waiting to happen right?
Ranb
Ranb