Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

When A Surgical Colleague Makes An Error., Ryan M. Antiel, Thane A. Blinman, Rebecca M. Rentea, Katherine W. Gonzalez, E Marty Marty Knott, David Juang, Tolulope A. Oyetunji, G W. Holcomb Iii, Peter Angelos, John D. Lantos

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Professionalism requires that doctors acknowledge their errors and figure out how to avoid making similar ones in the future. Over the last few decades, doctors have gotten better at acknowledging mistakes and apologizing to patients when a mistake happens. Such disclosure is especially complicated when one becomes aware of an error made by a colleague. We present a case in which consultant surgeons became aware that a colleague seemed to have made a serious error. Experts in surgery and bioethics comment on appropriate responses to this situation.