Errors in Medicine
This excerpt is taken from an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association, "Error in Medicine."1 It describes the potential dangers inherent in hospital stays.
"Also in 1991, the Harvard Medical Practice Study2 reported the results of a population-based study of iatrogenic injury in patients hospitalized in New York State in 1984.2,3 Nearly 4% of patients suffered an injury that prolonged their hospital stay or resulted in measurable disability. For New York State, this equalled 98,609 patients in 1984. Nearly l4% of these injuries were fatal. If these rates are typical of the United States, then 180,000 people die each year partly as a result of iatrogenic injury, the equivalent of three jumbo-jet crashes every 2 days."
Many relevant diagnostic signs are not performed deliberately by the examiner or by the patient at the examiner’s direction. They are observed as the patient reacts to their condition. Fortin’s finger sign, Minor’s sign, and Vanzetti’s sign are three examples of this principle.
Spearheaded by burgeoning scientific and clinical research literature, psychedelics have reached a level of media coverage and popular interest that has not been seen for over half a century. By “psychedelics,” we are referring to the unique class of substances that includes psilocybin (the active compound found in so-called “magic mushrooms”), LSD, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ayahuasca, 5-MeO-DMT, and mescaline – each of which occurs in the natural world (except for LSD, which is a semi-synthetic compound).
While working at the Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M., one of the primary care physicians stated that imaging every patient prior to receiving chiropractic was not medically necessary. It was at that point I reconsidered the need for the imaging of every patient to avoid malpractice.
