Disclosure

On my way home after dinner with my first-year medical doctor colleagues, I had a chat with one of them.

We spoke about disclosure of medical errors, which haunt bitterly many of the doctors - young and experienced ones alike. Such stories are always cropping up in the news nowadays. Hardly a day goes by without the press reporting medical errors. What if you prescribe the wrong medication to your patient who gets into trouble? What about wrong diagnosis? Or worse: Should you make immediate disclosure if you cut something which you shouldn't in the operating theatre? And yes, I did make one such blunder last week.

Time and time again doctors make mistakes, each time we agonize over whether to disclose the story, but every time the debate goes on with a barrage of controversies.

That reminds me of the maxim by James Hacker (from my favourite book Yes Prime Minister): If you are incompetent you have to be honest, and if you are crooked you have to be clever. It would, of course, be just naïve optimism for medical doctors to rate ourselves as always competent, not to mention clever. If that is the case, candid and early disclosure is a legitimate option, isn't it?