80,000 — infections in hospitals
yeah ok, also expect this to go up.

so thats 64.000 of direct cause. not 250,000 …

20,000 — other errors in hospitals
what does this mean? that doesnt sound as caused by drs

= 44,000

— of concern:

7000 medication error deaths ! thats pretty good i must say.
12000 unnec surgery… , see Francis’ response.

Francis makes a good observation which is particularly significant because nearly half of the total number is due to non-error, negative effects of drugs—this includes things like severe allergic reactions to a medication which there is no way of predicting.

As far as the 2nd-leading cause, infections in hospitals are incredibly difficult to prevent. If you’ve ever worked in a hospital, you’ll know that the staff don’t tend to get sick more often than people who work in other settings. Patients, on the other hand, tend to acquire other infections after being admitted. This is because the microorganisms that run rampant in hospitals are those that affect people in immunocompromised states—and that is in fact the state of many hospitalized patients, either by virtue of the disease which caused them to be admitted, or as a result of medication they are receiving for that treatment. Many of these bugs are drug-resistant and very easily transmitted (air-borne, clinging to a doctors’ neckties, etc.).

I’m not trying to be apologist here—there are definitely things that can and should be done better. I’m just trying to clarify any misconception about iatrogenic causes of death. They are most certainly caused by physicians, but may not necessarily be the fault of the physician, as some (many) of them are truly unavoidable.