Medical mistakes are more pervasive than we think. How can we improve outcomes? An acclaimed MD’s rich stories and research explore patient safety. Patients enter the medical system with faith that they will receive the best care possible, so when things go wrong, it’s a profound and painful breach. Medical science has made enormous strides in decreasing mortality and suffering, but there’s no doubt that treatment can also cause harm, a significant portion of which is preventable. In When We Do Harm, practicing physician and acclaimed author Danielle Ofri places the issues of medical error and patient safety front and center in our national healthcare conversation. Drawing on current research, professional experience, and extensive interviews with nurses, physicians, administrators, researchers, patients, and families, Dr. Ofri explores the diagnostic, systemic, and cognitive causes of medical error. She advocates for strategic use of concrete safety interventions such as checklists and improvements to the electronic medical record, but focuses on the full-scale cultural and cognitive shifts required to make a meaningful dent in medical error. Woven throughout the book are the powerfully human stories that Dr. Ofri is renowned for. The errors she dissects range from the hardly noticeable missteps to the harrowing medical cataclysms. While our healthcare system is—and always will be—imperfect, Dr. Ofri argues that it is possible to minimize preventable harms, and that this should be the galvanizing issue of current medical discourse.

Ian Blumer looks at the doctor-patient relationship what your doctor will and wont tell you in the examining room.

On average, a physician will interrupt a patient describing her symptoms within eighteen seconds. In that short time, many doctors decide on the likely diagnosis and best treatment. Often, decisions made this way are correct, but at crucial moments they can also be wrong—with catastrophic consequences. In this myth-shattering book, Jerome Groopman pinpoints the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make. Groopman explores why doctors err and shows when and how they can—with our help—avoid snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can profoundly impact our health. This book is the first to describe in detail the warning signs of erroneous medical thinking and reveal how new technologies may actually hinder accurate diagnoses. How Doctors Think offers direct, intelligent questions patients can ask their doctors to help them get back on track. Groopman draws on a wealth of research, extensive interviews with some of the country’s best doctors, and his own experiences as a doctor and as a patient. He has learned many of the lessons in this book the hard way, from his own mistakes and from errors his doctors made in treating his own debilitating medical problems. How Doctors Think reveals a profound new view of twenty-first-century medical practice, giving doctors and patients the vital information they need to make better judgments together.

Getting the right diagnosis is a key aspect of health care - it provides an explanation of a patient's health problem and informs subsequent health care decisions. The diagnostic process is a complex, collaborative activity that involves clinical reasoning and information gathering to determine a patient's health problem. According to Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, diagnostic errors-inaccurate or delayed diagnoses-persist throughout all settings of care and continue to harm an unacceptable number of patients. It is likely that most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences. Diagnostic errors may cause harm to patients by preventing or delaying appropriate treatment, providing unnecessary or harmful treatment, or resulting in psychological or financial repercussions. The committee concluded that improving the diagnostic process is not only possible, but also represents a moral, professional, and public health imperative. Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, a continuation of the landmark Institute of Medicine reports To Err Is Human (2000) and Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), finds that diagnosis-and, in particular, the occurrence of diagnostic errorsâ€"has been largely unappreciated in efforts to improve the quality and safety of health care. Without a dedicated focus on improving diagnosis, diagnostic errors will likely worsen as the delivery of health care and the diagnostic process continue to increase in complexity. Just as the diagnostic process is a collaborative activity, improving diagnosis will require collaboration and a widespread commitment to change among health care professionals, health care organizations, patients and their families, researchers, and policy makers. The recommendations of Improving Diagnosis in Health Care contribute to the growing momentum for change in this crucial area of health care quality and safety.

Information about stubborn symptoms that “helps you end the cycle of being sick and tired” (Mark Hyman, MD). In this book, Dr. Sharon Norling provides thought-provoking evidence that challenges our traditional thinking about right and wrong choices in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Your Doctor Is Wrong is filled with patients’ stories and life-saving information, and is documented with medical journal citations. If you are still suffering after years of medical care and pharmaceutical drugs, Your Doctor Is Wrong will help you to get your life on the healthy track. Read Your Doctor Is Wrong if your symptoms of fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, depression, allergies, joint pain, lack of motivation, headaches, hormonal imbalances, or intestinal issues are just not going away. “Based on years of medical practice, Dr. Norling has done a thorough job of going beneath the surface to uncover root causes of the many conditions that affect us today. She then describes the treatments that, unlike conventional methods that just cover over the symptoms (or produce serious side effects!) actually get results based our natural body’s physiology and chemistry.” —Hyla Cass, MD, author of 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health

Praise for Your Symptoms Are Real "Thank God for this book. It provides the help that millions of Americans with 'silent illnesses' like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia have been waiting for. Dr. Natelson is a brilliant and compassionate clinician who covers the best treatments that medical science has to offer, along with a thorough consideration of complementary approaches. Short of cloning him, this book offers the specific help you need to work in partnership with your own physician." --Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind "Natelson is the kind of doctor every patient is looking for: smart, thoughtful, empathetic, and supportive. Reading Your Symptoms Are Real is the next best thing to having a world-renowned specialist managing your case." --Charles W. Lapp, M.D., Director of the Hunter-Hopkins Center and Assistant Consulting Professor at Duke University Medical Center "Do not throw up your hands and give up when one doctor after another tells you there is nothing wrong with you--instead, read this book! Benjamin Natelson is the person you have been looking for to guide you on your path to recovery." --Sandra Blakeslee, coauthor of The Body Has a Mind of Its Own "Natelson superbly incorporates research studies, clinical trials (even on drugs in development), and patient case reports in this book. If you are battling pain and fatigue symptoms but your tests are all normal, you will enjoy reading Natelson's pro-patient approach to explaining the real nature of your illness, his recommended treatment approaches, and how to cope with everything that is going on in your life." --Kristin Thorson, editor of the Fibromyalgia Network and President of the American Fibromyalgia Syndrome Association

Discusses how to avoid harmful medical mistakes, offering advice on such topics as working with a busy doctor, communicating the full story of an illness, evaluating test risks, and obtaining a working diagnosis.