Two Sides to the Bed: Physician-Patient and Physician-Friend

Errors can happen in the most accomplished of systems, and healthcare providers need a better understanding of what effect these errors have on patients, what we must do to respond to errors, and what we can do to prevent them. The authors describe a medical error from the perspectives of both physician-patient and physician-friend, identifying key “lessons learned” and strategies for preventing similar errors from occurring in other healthcare settings.

Keywords: patient vulnerability, medical error