Guns don’t kill people, doctors do

I borrowed this from another blog. It is a powerful statement about the state of safety in health care. Any physician who says that the systems in which they practice should be held equally accountable for these medical errors is right! It is not just the physician but the complexity of the systems we have set up which fail. BUT, physicians must stand up as the leaders of the health care team and demand that these preventable errors stop. They must take the time to participate in the system solutions, regardless of the reimbursement they may or may not receive to be a part of the team. The physicians must be the leaders, the rest of us will follow.

From: Robert Sinsheimer
Subject: Medical Safety V. Gun Safety: An email now in circulation
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Doctors
(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths (medical error) caused by physicians per year are 120,000.
(C) Deaths due to medical error per physician is 0.171
Statistics courtesy of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
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Now think about this:
Guns
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000. (Yes, that’s 80 million)
(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .000188.
Statistics courtesy of FBI
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So, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
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Remember, ‘Guns don’t kill people, doctors do.’
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FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.
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