All medical mistakes are problematic. A few are truly tragic. But every now and then, a medical error comes along that is downright hilarious. From AHRQ WebM&M, the case-based Web journal I edit for the federal government, here are two of the latter kind. They are a hoot.We published the first about three years ago and called it “Allergy to ...

I recently participated in a meeting whose aim was to develop safety measures for hospital units (ie, med-surg, ED, L&D). As various measures were being ticked off, I muttered that we should also try to capture errors that occur as patients move between units. One of my colleagues, quite sensibly, asked, “but who will be accountable for that?” ...

Sorry, but today is the day for a tiny bit of Shameless Commerce – a quick plug for my new book, Understanding Patient Safety. I wouldn’t normally do this – I’m as brazenly promotional as anybody, mind you, but it does seem a bit cheesy – but then I saw Robert Reich promote his new book on his blog. I really like Robert Reich, Clinton I’s Labor ...