Forget pride and apologize to patients when you make mistakes in the operating room.
This was the advice given to local surgeons by internationally recognised British rectal cancer expert Professor Richard Heald, who this week told an Accra Beach Hotel conference room packed with local and visiting medical professionals that “skeletons in a surgeon’s cupboard are really horrible mistakes”.
“If we make a mistake with potential consequences to the patient, we must tell that patient and, if appropriate, perhaps close family and also the referring doctor,” Heald maintained.
Delivering a public lecture entitled Skeletons In The Cupboard, Heald also suggested to fellow surgeons: “If we do something wrong in the operating room, we must share our anxiety with the other people in the operating room, especially the surgeons in training.”
Read the full story in today’s SATURDAY SUN.
