Murphy

Over the years of medical practice after graduation, I recall an awful lot of good and bad memory, with stories interrrupted by medical errors aplenty, from wrong drugs to wrong patients. Many of these things, like leaving behind a gauze in patient's body, missing an important laboratory report, forgetting to consider the possibility of another serious illness, are the inevitable downside of having a (human) brain. And let's be clear: one definition of "human error" is "human nature."

One of the well-phrased laws is that "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." It's a line that's been used ad nauseam by people who teach medical safety. Is it true, even a little bit, that doctors are never good at filling the gap between how things are and how we want them to be?

Murphy's Law is difficult to beat, whether we admit it or not. People might rightly scratch their heads and wonder why doctors can make careless mistakes. But trust me, I am no exception. Two weeks ago, I was sick and running a temperature. It was my view then, and still is, that I should not take sick leave without terribly good reasons. High temperature, I know, wears on the body, nipping away at the brain cells that keeps us awake and sane. Unsettling as it is, it's hard for me to resist the notion that I can pay extra attention to keep myself in the right mind, and not the other way round. I was sitting in front of the computer when I tried to copy my patient's name and identity number (to send out a special laboratory request for a blood test that is only available abroad). I looked dazed, my head spinning, and my eyes wide open but seeing nothing ahead of me. Wait. I told myself to be careful and not to copy the wrong patient's number. Who in his right mind would want to send out an expensive blood test and end up with a wrong patient's identity?

Good, fine, you think. Did I end up with the wrong number? Yes, I really did.