DOCTORS’ MISTAKES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18757, 10 January 1923, Page 6

DOCTORS’ MISTAKES

DR BURROWS’S BOOK. PROFESSION UP IN ARMS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, January 9. A representative of the Sun, who sought the opinions of a number of medical practitioners in Christchurch regarding Dr Harold Burrows’s book, “ Mistakes and Accidents of Surgery,” which was referred to in yesterday's cables, found a great, unanimity in the opinions expressed. “1 think the book is rather a tragedy,” said the first doctor who was interviewed. It is certainly an indiscretion. People are so liable to misunderstand things of that kind. "In 30 years,” said another doctor, “I have seen very few mistakes. I think that Dr Burrows must have written the book as a humorous effort, and that if you read it you would find that it was so. Of course, mistakes are mad© sometimes.” A-medical man who confines himself to medical practice only, states that any man with 20 years’ experience of progressive surgery could find a number of mistakes to chronicle. Ho had himself seen a sponge left in a wound after an operation, but no barm would result from such a thing if it ■were noticed within a day or so of the operation. If tho book pointed out that it was better to have specialists on specialists’ jobs/ it might serve a useful purpose. It was possible for mistakes to be made even by the best men, but they were less likely to occur where the operator was a specialist who performed operations regularly. A fourth medical man expressed the opinion that the book should have been printed only for circulation among medical men. Its publication in the ordinary way and in the newspapers would servo only to scare people. . . A snecialist gave his opinion thus: I don’t know if Dr Burrows is or has been an outstanding man in his profession. If he has been ; he is now looking for a little cheap notoriety. There is a certain tvpe of man who thinks ho is doing the public a service by being frank, but there is frankness a'nd frankness. One might imagine from such a book that medical men were not straightforward. Of course, there are blackguards in the profession, as there are in any other, but the medical profession as a whole is morally above reproach. As for tho man who is reported to have removed the. wrong leg, he should either have shot himself or hare been hanged ”