Diagnostic Error Quotes

In 1970 I realized that there was negligible risk from x-rays but many radiographs had poor image quality so that the risk from a false negative was significant.

Doctors most commonly get mixed up between absence of evidence and evidence of abense

You want to challenge experts, because experts get a lot wrong. Doctors misdiagnose one time in five. In the U.S. and Canada, 50,000 people die every year who would not have had to.

I had actually hurt my neck, and because I went a while without getting it taken care of - it was pushing up against the back of my heart - and because I have heart issues, they thought it was this whole big deal. So I spent a good three days in the hospital, two nights in the ICU.

In total, I was diagnosed with depression by eight psychotherapists and psychiatrists over a period of thirteen years. Diagnosed wrong. Absolutely wrong. My accurate diagnosis was manic depression, or what we call bipolar disorder today.

And then they sign an affidavit swearing that she's not in a vegetative stage. I'll tell you. That's a doctor you really want; they can look at a picture and make a diagnosis.

Doctors are just people and they can make mistakes.

They had me on the operating table all day. They looked into my stomach, my gall bladder, they examined everything inside of me. Know what they decided? I need glasses.

One of the most widespread diseases is diagnosis.

Many medical students, like most American patients, confuse science and technology. They think that what it means to be a scientific doctor is to bring to bear the maximum amount of technology on any given patient. And this makes them dangerous.

It is incident to physicians, I am afraid, beyond all other men, to mistake subsequence for consequence.

On December 17, 1984, I had surgery to remove two inches of my left lung due to pneumonia. After two hours of surgery the doctors told my mother I had AIDS.

Do not mistake a child for his symptom.

All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You'd be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men.

A physician who treated me as a nervous case for a while said in the end "No! It is not a matter of your nerves; it is I who am nervous".