As an internist at Johns Hopkins Hospital so graphically states, "Mistakes are happening every day in every hospital in the country that we're just not catching." Most patients consistently trust that their medical professional in Pennsylvania and everywhere else is the best. Yet, even the best of the best can make mistakes.

Medical malpractice and errors cause over 250,000 fatalities annually, while millions of people suffer injuries. Another Johns Hopkins Hospital physician calls medical errors ". . . the third leading cause of death" in the U.S.

Unfortunately, for many patients, the harm done is often avoidable. Some examples of common mistakes that drive this needlessness include:

• Treating the wrong patient due to hospital staff failing to verify a patient's identity.
• "Surgical souvenirs" left in patients when operating room staff miscounts the tools used in the operating room.
• Losing patients with dementia symptoms, as they sometimes wander away.
• Con artists pretending to be doctors is much more common than the profession wants to admit.
• Patients becoming sicker while suffering long emergency room waits from hospital overcrowding.
• Air bubbles in patient blood streams when holes are not sealed properly can cause death if not quickly repaired.
• Patients enduring operations on the wrong body part; usually caused because of a patient chart error or a misreading of a correct chart.
• Hospital-generated infections injure and kill patients when medical professionals do not properly scrub up.

This list offers only a sample of all too common medical mistakes. As any lay person can understand, all of these dangerous medical errors should be avoidable. Yet, these and other medically negligent mistakes occur daily in all hospitals around the country.

Have you ever been the victim of medical error? Do you know anyone who has suffered this unfortunate fate?

Source: CNN, "10 shocking medical mistakes," John Bonifield and Elizabeth Cohen, Nov. 5, 2012