The doctor’s dilemma: is it ever good to do harm?

If a patient’s heart stops, the doctor can resuscitate them. But how does the doctor decide if it’s the right thing to do?

 Move over Hippocrates: Harm reduction as the new paradigm for health care

The concept of “First, do no harm,” which is embedded in the oath that kicks off the careers of most new doctors in America, has become something of a surrogate for the practice of medicine. But it’s something of a false promise. Doctors routinely cause their patients harm. The oath we should be taking is, “Help others with as little harm as possible.”

 Too Much Medicine Is Bad for Our Health

The evidence is compelling that we in the developed countries (especially the US) are overtesting for disease, overdiagnosing it, and overtreating.

Addressing the Long-Term Impact of Patient Harm

The safety movement has focused most of its efforts on preventing errors and adverse events while patients receive medical care. But when harm occurs, the extent of the emotional impact on patients and families — and how to support them in the immediate and long-term aftermath — is not well understood.

Behind the scenes

My research led to a story called "Do No Harm," which we ran today, about how hospitals react to hurting patients. For the story, I traveled to California to meet Claire, visit hospitals, talk with nurses, and observe the type of work that's necessary to make our health-care system safer.

Doctors Make Mistakes. A New Documentary Explores What Happens When They Do—and How to Fix It

People accept it as fact: that to err is human. Every misstep is an opportunity to learn and improve. But when the mistakes are made by doctors, lives can be compromised, or even lost.

Fatal mistakes

Doctors and nurses make thousands of deadly errors every year. They are reprimanded. Do they also deserve support?

Medical Error And Harm

Patients in the intensive care unit generally have complex healthcare issues with underlying comorbidities and organ dysfunction. They are thus more vulnerable to medical errors. Often, the treatment of these patients requires the use of interventions that could potentially result in adverse events, errors and harm. While critical care guidelines provide the necessary recommendations to ensure these errors and events remain at a minimum, the complexity of care and severity of illnesses in the ICU make this a high-risk environment.

The Experts: Are Medical Residents Dangerously Exhausted?

The evidence that prolonged wakefulness leads to diminished performance is both common-sensical and ironclad. In fact, after overnight marathons like the ones I engaged in twice weekly during training, cognitive performance matches that of a person with a blood alcohol level of 0.1—legally drunk in every state.

Too many Britons die from medical mistakes

Fixing the problem is complex. Talking about it is a start.

Use systems redesign and the law to prevent medical errors and accidents

Injury or illness caused by the healer is called iatrogenic harm. It’s so widespread, so frequent, so massive, and so continuous that it rarely makes headlines. And unlike a plane crash or a building collapse, the vast majority of iatrogenic deaths can be kept under wraps — and they are.

Why doctors fail

Doctors are fallible; of course they are. So why do they find this so hard to admit, and how can they work more openly? Atul Gawande lifts the veil of secrecy in the first of his Reith lectures

Why Doctors Stay Mum About Mistakes Their Colleagues Make

Telling a patient about another doctor’s medical error can mean losing business or suffering retribution. Now, some physicians are looking for ways to break the code of silence.