Iatrogenic Deaths In United States

Introduction

Iatrogenic, also called harmful medical procedure, is the medical act because of the harmful type, which despite having been duly made has failed to recover the health of the patient, due to the logical and inevitable development of a certain pathology terminal. The medical act is temporary negative results due to factors of the disease or facing specific factors, peculiar and particular patient (www.who.int).

It derives from the word iatrogenesis which means 'caused by the doctor or healer'.

Iatrogenesis is a state, disease or condition caused or caused by medical treatments or medical drugs . This state can also result from treatment of other professionals related to health sciences, such as therapists, psychologists, pharmacists, nurses, dentists, etc. The condition, iatrogenic illness or death can also be caused by alternative medicines (Lazarou, Pomeranz & Corey, 1998, 1200-1205).

Discussion

Since the dawn of civilization have known the damage that can result from actions of doctors. Paragraphs 218 to 220 of the Code of Hammurabi , recorded almost four thousand years ago, show the knowledge that civil society used in ancient Mesopotamia to defend against alleged errors, recklessness and negligence of doctors.

A millennium and a half later Hippocrates recommended in the eleventh section of the first book of the Epidemic: Help or at least not harm. This phrase inspired the Latin aphorism “ Primum non nocere “attributed to Galen (Lazarou, Pomeranz & Corey, 1998, 1200-1205).

The traditional rule of “first do no harm” ( primum non nocere ) is one of the foundations of medical ethics, and iatrogenic death and disease caused voluntarily by the physician or neglect have been punished by the courts in many cultures. The transfer of pathogenic bacteria from the autopsy rooms of hospitals maternity wards came to cause high mortality from puerperal sepsis (or fever puerperal) in the maternity hospital in the early nineteenth century, and was an iatrogenic disaster the time. The form of infection was identified by Felipe Ignacio Semmelweis that simply washing your hands with a disinfectant concentrate reduced mortality (Phillips, Christenfeld & Glynn, 1998, 643-644).

The iatrogenic still has a high incidence in the XXI century although it was intended that the development of scientific medicine (also called biomedicine ), presumably could be expected that cases of iatrogenic illness or death were reduced significantly or disappear and are easily preventable. He said that with the discovery of antiseptics , anesthesia , antibiotics and new surgical techniques greatly decrease iatrogenic mortality. However, by way of example, iatrogenic is the third cause of death in the United States by recent studies (www.toxicteeth.org).

According to report released in November 1999, revealed that iatrogenic accidents could be the cause of 44 000 to 98 000 deaths per year in hospital care short term United States. These results were obtained by extrapolation to the whole of American research findings well known that were conducted in California in the seventies. In the State of New York in the eighties and later in Utah and Colorado. These studies have determined the incidence rate of accidents ...