[vintagedave]

You have been downvoted, but I'm not sure that's reasonable. While doctors do generally do their best, sometimes medical care is not ideal.

Your point though seems to be rooted in what happened to you as a child. I'm sorry to hear it. Could you share something about what happened please?

[lynx23]

I expected nothing else but downvotes. It is pretty representative for the times that peopel can not stand viewpoints which do not align with their own.

And no, I am not going to post my personal medical history on HN in detail. My short description of the incident is already personal enough. Besides, what would that help? Everyone picks their own convenient opinion these days, all that can come out of this is that people publicly will doubt my personal experience, which is not useful for anyone.

[logicchains]

Statistically, medical error is the third leading cause of death in America, so it's not surprising.

[jfk13]

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-health/m...

[madacol]

My takeaway from that article are these important criticisms:

- Correlation is not causation: A medical error, followed by a death does not implies medical error caused death

- The study that claim is based (BMJ analysis), suggest that 62% of US hospital deaths are caused by medical errors. Which seems hard to believe, especially having similar studies instead suggesting a 3.6% in UK, 4.6% in Norway, and 5% in a meta study

- Experts do not agree which facts are medical errors

Most (All?) other claims were about high uncertainty. Small Ns and possible biases in the samples, many obvious and others even irrelevant criticisms

---

There's still a lot of uncertainty, even in the criticisms.

I think they could have easily made estimations with the UK, Norway and meta study hospital data to have a minimum estimate of medical errors to counter BMJ analysis with a more reasonable number.

We really should calculate more and talk less (I am already sinning with this comment --_(=/)_--)

[madacol]

TL;DR in UK medical errors seem to be the 7th Cause leading factor

I did some maths (Or Code interpreter did? but I did verified unsourced numbers are in the ball park, at least for UK)

So for UK the estimate of deaths by medical errors is ~11k deaths, which puts it at the 7th cause factor according to this chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-number-of-deaths-b... just below dementia and above liver desease

---

Keep in mind that I am not sure if the 3.6% figure really means causation, I am tired!

GPT4 chat link:https://chat.openai.com/share/7d235295-c149-45f0-ac3d-2a0cfd...

[lynx23]

I am aware how dangerous it is to completely and utterly give oneself up to the medical system. Those without experience dont want to believe this for the sake of their own feeling of comfort and safety.

[vintagedave]

> And no, I am not going to post my personal medical history on HN

I understand. I hope my request to learn more came across as polite to you. The reason for asking was to understand more about the motivations and beliefs / experiences behind your comment.

> Everyone picks their own convenient opinion these days, all that can come out of this is that people publicly will doubt my personal experience, which is not useful for anyone.

I like to think HN is a forum where this is less likely, or where poor responses are flagged or downvoted, but of course I've seen it here too, and I understand your caution.

[cmilton]

I believe the comment you are replying to is sincere.

Not everyone is “picking their own convenient opinion”. There are good people in this world that just want the best for others. I think that may be the case here.

Godspeed.

[634636346]

I upvoted you, for what it's worth. People here really are relentless with the downvoting and flagging.