[charlesism]

I'd be interested in your opinion on what errors could be prevented by intervening less. With all the legal, financial, and emotional pressures for doctors to "do something," I'd be surprised if the most common errors are errors of neglect.

[PavlovsCat]

A lot of pressure on doctors and nurses (in hospitals) is due to the fact that there are a lot of actual and potential patients, but not so many beds and people to take care of them. So corners have to get cut, less is already being done.

[charlesism]

My reasoning is that it's probably easier to harm someone by botching an operation, or by administering an overdose, then it is by their not having the surgery at all, or skipping medication. Not that either case is ideal, of course!

No doubt doctors and nurses are overworked. It occurs to me that our culture may set the bar too low on when to intervene. Things seem to go wrong more often than we like to acknowledge.

Heck, just sleeping a few nights in a hospital, without any treatment, already exposes a human to unhealthy hospital food, infectious disease, and a small, but non-zero, risk of a nurse mistakenly pumping you full of insulin.

[ch4s3]

Then you would be very surprised. Patient data is fragmented and doctors are overworked, accidentally missing something routine happens constantly. But unnecessary treatment happens too, if you're interested in that, read up on Choosing Wisely.