Medical Mistakes is a Leading Cause of Death

It was shocking to me years ago when I read the article in the Wall Street Journal on medical error statistics, “Medical errors kill enough people to fill four jumbo jets a week.” The interview was conducted with Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon at John Hopkins, and author of the book, Unaccountable: “What hospitals won’t tell you and how transparency can revolutionize healthcare”. The results of a study published in 2016 from John Hopkins university had an estimate of approximately 251,454 deaths annually, which would position Medical Error, as the 3rd in the leading causes of death behind heart, disease and cancer.

To be fair, even though medical error is one of the leading causes of death, the medical field also saves a lot of lives, especially through critical trauma care and intervention. The medical field has had a lot of growth pressure over the years and has been impacted by an aging population, as well as many that put their dependency and reliance on medicine instead of personal responsibility and lifestyle habits. We have a lot more time to take personal responsibility for our health than our doctor or healthcare staff does and should care more than they do about our own health and wellbeing.

Where we go wrong is being led to believe that we need to constantly be tethered to the healthcare system through checkups, screenings, vaccinations and office visits without good reason and solid research behind what we are consuming or injecting. The medical industry has wrongfully stepped into the shoes of prevention and into a very lucrative business called, “managed care.” The many different medicines and screenings can in-and-of-itself cause a new side effect, chronic disease or simply be something you pick up from the medical practice or hospital. If we could spend an equal amount of time trying to set up or reinforce healthy lifestyle habits it just might give our body the tools it needs to become and stay healthy.

Our body’s internal doctor (our immune system) is constantly going through a system of checks and balances, checking for errors, infections, muscle breakdown, bone density etc. and it comes back with a report of the list of things needed and oft times this is a very simple list of needs, (cleaner oxygen, staying hydrated, a more balanced diet, regular exercise, de-stressing regularly and getting good deep rest).

Our body has a similar reaction to a car when we let the fluids get out of whack, or when we put in fluids it doesn’t like or recognize, -it will simply not run properly and if we don’t start using the right fluids, something a lot worse will happen such as engine or transmission failure.

We are in an era where the healthcare system has a lot more new people entering due to the aging baby-boom population, so doing everything we can to lessen reliance is key! One offset that we have that can help us counter the limited access to healthcare is our easy access to information and the internet to research whatever health issue we may be facing. As many of us as possible should try to learn how to use the internet for health research, it is a powerful diagnostic tool and unlike your doctor it will allow you unlimited amounts of time (for free) to ask health and medical questions.

Example: for foods that are best for a diabetic, I’ll type the following into the search bar, “best foods for a diabetic, or diabetic diet” then I’ll click on the link that looks the most informative for what I’m researching and continue narrowing my research from there. You can also watch videos on your health topic by entering YouTube at the end of your question. Example: “Diabetes YouTube” Pick videos that have a large number of views (this usually shows that it’s probably a credible source that has a large following).

Try this: Think of something “anything” that you may want to know more about, then go on the internet and research it for one hour and see how much you can learn in one hour for free!

If we can take personal responsibility for our own health and the ones around us by implementing healthy habits that our bodies can depend on and learn to use the power of the internet to research health, prevention and medicine, I believe we will have some of the best sets of tools we can add to our arsenal to help us offset an uncertain healthcare system.

Take away: If we can get proactive in learning what makes our bodies stay healthy now; we greatly increase our chance of not being as reliant on the healthcare system later!

Note: I have family, good friends, that work in the medical field, (from medical doctors, nurses and CEO positions), and there are many including them that do their job, do it well, and are a part of what is helping make the statistics in the medical field better, and I salute you and what you do for all of us!