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Mistakes, Medical

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Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics

Abstract

Throughout the history of medicine, there has been recurrent attention to the harms associated with medical care. Moral judgment about these harms is inextricably tied to the cultural context, including political and social structures, theories of health and illness, and theories of error and accountability. This entry examines historical, conceptual, and ethical dimensions of medical error from ancient times to the emergence of the patient safety movement in the twentieth century and its spread around the world in the first part of the twenty-first century. This entry reviews the fundamental shift in accountability for medical error that is at the heart of the patient safety movement and the ethical challenge of using data on medical error to improve health care quality without compromising the fundamental obligation to be honest with individual patients about their care.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Georgetown University, Center for Clinical Bioethics and Veterans Health Administration, National Center for Ethics in Health Care, Washington, DC, USA

    Virginia A. Sharpe

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  1. Virginia A. Sharpe
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Correspondence to Virginia A. Sharpe .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Duquesne University Center for Healthcare Ethics, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Henk ten Have

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© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Sharpe, V.A. (2015). Mistakes, Medical. In: ten Have, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_296-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_296-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05544-2

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