Editor's Choice
First do no harm: the impossible oath
BMJ 2019; 366 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l4734 (Published 19 July 2019) Cite this as: BMJ 2019;366:l4734Discussions about patient safety describe healthcare as an industry. If that’s the case then what is healthcare’s business? What does it manufacture? Health and wellbeing? Possibly. But we know for certain that healthcare manufactures harm. Look at the data from our new research paper on the prevalence, severity, and nature of preventable harm (doi:10.1136/bmj.l4185). Maria Panagioti and colleagues find that the prevalence of overall harm, preventable and non-preventable, is 12% across medical care settings. Around half of this is preventable.
These data make something of a mockery of our principal professional oath …