Medical Errors in Modern Medicine

   Sometimes, at home, I have thought that the safety checks we do in the hospital are unnecessary. For example, we do a "time-out" prior to a vaginal delivery, where the nurse states the patient's name and a couple other key details. While I am normally very pro-safety, I have, on occasion, thought: "Who cares what her birthdate is? There's a baby coming out, RIGHT NOW, and I'm going to deliver her regardless of what you tell me." In Tanzania, and many other countries, I would imagine, time-outs are not regularly (or sometimes, ever) performed. This is true even before major surgery, which is unbelievable to anyone who has practiced medicine in a developed country. This, compounded with the fact that all records are paper, which can be easily misplaced, switched or damaged, and patients in the hospital don't have the standard "armband" to identify then sets up an ideal environment for medical errors.
    Since coming here, I've heard of several such errors, most of which have been surgical issues, but medical errors could be made just as easily. For instance, one resident told me that a patient had gotten a craniotomy instead of a pin placed for a broken leg in a hospital in Dar es Salaam when his chart was inadvertently switched with another patient's chart. He ended up dying shortly after the surgery. In another case, a patient with endometrial cancer, who was scheduled for an abdominal hysterectomy (TAH) had an exam under anesthesia and another, young, patient who had a presumed fistula, had a TAH instead of an exam to identify where her fistula was.
   I guess, my point is, even though we may have to do thousands of seemingly extraneous safety checks to prevent one outcome, it's worth it. I would hope that if myself or anyone I love needs surgery in the future, the surgical and anesthesia teams would take the time to make sure things go safely. Sorry, Duke Birthing Center, I'll stop grumbling about time-outs.