Dr. Rob Galloway, an emergency medicine consultant, admits that he has made patient treatment mistakes in the past. Now, he lays out his golden rules to help others avoid these medical errors.
Patient Treatment Mistakes
In his article for the Daily Mail, Dr. Galloway expresses how distressing it would be to undergo a postoperative procedure for forcep removal because the surgical tool was left inside the abdomen.
He adds other scenarios, such as undergoing an ovary-preserving procedure only to have the organs accidentally removed. Another scenario involves someone going through a hip operation due to years of long-standing pain only to find out that the hip operation covered the good one.
However, the worst of it all is for a doctor to conduct a procedure that was meant for another patient.
While all of these may seem like fictional drama scenarios, they were actually real-life mishaps that the English healthcare system has faced within ten months. All of these were included in NHS England's list of "never events."
These events refer to serious medical incidents that should never take place. According to the NHS, all of these can be prevented with proper safety recommendations and guidance. Dr. Galloway notes that, from April 2022 to January 2023, a total of 325 never events took place across England alone.
Though this may be a statistically small number, the patients behind these numbers are left to face grave consequences.
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Human Factors
Dr. Galloway notes that, in simple terms, these catastrophes take place because of human factors. He notes that modern healthcare is remarkably complex, and humans are not designed to follow through with such complexity levels.
He expresses that despite his years of practice and teaching about medical error prevention, he himself has not been exempted from making mistakes. Dr. Galloway notes that as he added years to his profession, he realized that most medical mistakes are not due to knowledge or care lapses but rather because the complexity of healthcare is indeed difficult for humans.
Despite this, professionals are forced to work in a system where these human factors are not acknowledged nor addressed.
How To Prevent Patient Treatment Mistakes
Nevertheless, Dr. Galloway adds some things that healthcare professionals should keep in mind. For one, it is important to avoid using medical jargon. Patients may get confused with hyperkalaemia and hypokalaemia, while it is easier to not mix up high and low potassium.
Another way to boost patient safety is to ensure that doctors proceed with standardized working methods.
Dr. Galloway introduced prompt cards to his team that could handle critical conditions in real-time. The cards cover step-by-step reminders. He notes that these cards have helped them minimize healthcare errors.
There are things that can be done on the patient side as well. For one, Dr. Galloway suggests that patients ask specialists to repeat what they say, especially if these patients have specific allergies.
Moreover, when it comes to drug injections, patients can also ask about the drug being injected.
For operations, patients should evaluate the consent form and talk with the surgeon in charge.
Most importantly, it is important to speak up if something seems wrong. Dr. Galloway tells patients not to be intimidated by the professionals and that speaking up will help doctors help them better.
Learning From Mistakes
Dr. Galloway says that all of the listed tragedies offer vital lessons for those in the healthcare scene, be they professionals or patients. While the patients in these catastrophic scenarios have failed, blaming nurses or doctors is not the solution. Ruling out outlier cases that involve people who should be imprisoned, healthcare professionals generally do not work to harm others.
Scapegoating or blaming may not be the solution as well. Doing so will make staff bury their errors and stop future patients from benefiting from the lesson.
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