All doctors, including those who practice medicine, are fallible. Mistakes in diagnosis are frequent among them. Autopsy investigations provide one incontestable measure, notwithstanding the difficulty of estimating the prevalence of such errors: There were “substantial diagnostic discrepancies” in 10% to 20% of the cases (Graber 2013). Other kinds of studies have shown similar results (see Graber 2013).
When it comes to having a fundamental understanding of medicine, doctors have been known to make a number of horrendous mistakes.
In one study, gynecologists asked women who had a positive mammogram if they were more likely to get breast cancer than those who had a negative one. They were given a series of questions with four potential solutions, one of which was the right one, as well as statistical data that would have made the task easier. Only 21% of the doctors correctly answered, therefore they performed a bit worse than predicted if they had chosen the response at random.
Blame carries a heavy cost
A key negative side effect of holding doctors accountable for their errors is defensive medicine. Underdiagnosis and treatment harms are frequently easier to comprehend than overdiagnosis and treatment harms due to their dramatic character. Doctors may lessen their risk of being sued for carelessness by exercising prudence. Every year, the United States spends between $650 billion and $850 billion on “defensive medicine” (jacksonhealthcare.com). Doctors suffer as a result of the blame-centered attitude. Being a doctor is a demanding profession.
Doctors frequently experience despair and tiredness, and the suicide rate among doctors is disturbingly highβ41% for men and 127% for women (Schernhammer 2004). This may be partially related to a sense of guilt and responsibility for making mistakes or even for taking risks that have unfavorable outcomes. When it focuses too much emphasis on the physician’s duties, the contemporary medical system has a tendency to marginalize and ignore a crucial healthcare resource: the patient.
The Physician as a Leader
Olympians in white coats are still very much in charge of today’s healthcare system, which dictates what patients should do to them. Nothing is more passive than being referred to as a “patient,” which is what happens when you sign in to the system (oed.com). Being a doctor gives you access to a set of skills and knowledge that are frequently idealized in popular culture because of the high social status it entails. The doctor is an unapproachable authoritative figure for patients since he or she is someone who must be obeyed at all costs.
Because of this, Wegwarth and Gigerenzer name the decision rule most of us adhere to when it comes to our medical requirements the “trust-your-doctor” heuristic: contact your doctor and merely follow her instructions, which is not surprising (2013). The burden of making the right choices falls entirely on the physician due to the significant information gap between them and their patients. Informed consent was adopted in the 20th century to protect patient autonomy, yet in our thoughts, a dominating doctor and a cooperative patient still exist. We run the risk of missing out on patient-centered solutions with this framework in place because we are bound by it.
Treating the patient with respect
Patient involvement in medical decisions is a strategy to enhance those decisions rather than just safeguarding patients’ rights. Through informed consent and, more recently, the concept of shared decision-making, medicine has undergone a progressive shift over the past couple of centuries that has placed a greater emphasis on the patient.
This is excellent that it’s happening. Sometimes, doctors could be mistaken. Patients could be right in some circumstances. When these circumstances coincide, doctors will replace their patients’ accurate assessments with their own flawed ones under an authoritarian paradigm. In a perfect world, the patient would have recognized the doctor’s mistake and remedied it. One step in achieving this goal is to consider patient resources while making medical decisions.