Can anyone tell me the 6th leading cause of death among US citizens. Talking 100000 anually. Its a *** shame people don't take their oaths seriously and then wanna turn around and charge you a dollar for a penny.

I don't know. My wild guess is, rabbit attack?

Rabbits wont charge you a dollar for a penny. Sorry wrong species.

According to the CDC, the 6th leading cause of death in the USA is Alzheimer's, which took over 120,000 in 2010 (the most recent year for which they have statistics).

Penny Trumpet makers?

I guess you mean accidental deaths caused by physicians per year? Which is claimed to be around 120,000 deaths per year.

Except, it seems that frequently cited claim is suspect / misleading, and may not actually be true.

If the cut and pasted bit below is correct, I think it may be a stretch to blame doctors for all of those deaths. E.g., the cleaning staff in the hospitals are likely resonable for more deaths due to infections than the doctors are.

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The JOURNAL of the AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (JAMA) Vol 284, No 4, July 26th 2000 article written by Dr Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH, of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, shows that medical errors may be the third leading cause of death in the United States.

The report apparently shows there are 2,000 deaths/year from unnecessary surgery; 7000 deaths/year from medication errors in hospitals; 20,000 deaths/year from other errors in hospitals; 80,000 deaths/year from infections in hospitals; 106,000 deaths/year from non-error, adverse effects of medications - these total up to 225,000 deaths per year in the US from iatrogenic causes which ranks these deaths as the # 3 killer. Iatrogenic is a term used when a patient dies as a direct result of treatments by a physician, whether it is from misdiagnosis of the ailment or from adverse drug reactions used to treat the illness. (drug reactions are the most common cause).

Balducci, by your own numbers, adverse effects of medication and surgical mistakes, which can only be blamed on doctors, add up to 108,000 deaths. Foreva.infinit posited 100,000 in his OP. For every disease there's a number.

Hi balducci,

I am certain that more problems have been caused by the failure of medical staff to wash their hands, than by inadequacies of the cleaning staff.

When you consider that there are fewer than 1,000,000 practicing physicians and surgeons in the United States, the 100,000 or so deaths cited in the paper you found, as well as in the Institute of Medicine's reports, is rather alarming.

However, it should be borne in mind, that most of those 100,000 victims were not in perfectly normal health when they first consulted a doctor, and that a certain percentage of them probably would have died within the year whether or not their care had been associated with any "mistakes."

It should also be borne in mind, that although some medical mistakes are incontrovertibly identifiable, there are differences of opinion regarding appropriate care, and what seems like a foolish mistake today might be tomorrow's appropriate therapy, and vice versa.

If it can happen to one of our best Presidents ever (Jimmy Carter) and the Knights that were searching for the Holy Grail (Monty Python), it can happen to anybody!

:bat:

Finally someone got it right. I was ****ed off to here about how some surgeons SEDATED SOMEONE WHO WAS ASSUMED TO BE DEAD and began to start harvesting her organs. Luckily she woke up in the nick of time. Charging a dollar for a penny was referring to $40 aspirin. don't even get me started on the jello which doesn't even cost 79 cents. Oh wait I take that back I forget how much labor is involved in making jello.

THAT WHOLE INDUSTRY IS CROOKED!

From the insurance companies, to the hospitals upselling, all the way to prescribing medicines (minus loud) that will heart you as well as it would hurt you. Depressed ppl contemplate suicide so why are suicidal thoughts a side effect to anti depressants? Oh by the way the woman who woke up in time ended up killing herself a yr later but sounds like she had her own problems

http://globalgrind.com/news/brain-dead-w......en-burns

This bit jumped out at me:

Sadly, Ms. Burns died soon after. She committed suicide. Neither her nor her parents pressed charges against the hospital. Lucille Kuss, her mother, said Burns "was so depressed that it really didn't make any difference to her."

Yep, it really is. What makes me mad is when you have a job that doesn't offer health care, but when you're sick, they want a doctor's note. This means they want you to get a 800$ bill for going to a doctor and showing him you have a cold, just to get a doctor's note and have him tell you to buy some tylenol! I worked in the medical field briefly, but couldn't stand the way things like that were being handled, so I left.

A lot of fields have things goin on that usually only the people in the field know of. Its unspoken but it exists in the medical field as well:

There are way too many people in need of blood organs etc everyone knows this. So why is it ever ok to turn someone down who wants to donate bone marrow or blood just because they look homeless (may very well be) and you think they're gonna smoke or drink up all the money you give them. First off that's messed up how people are judged like that but secondly who cares? If it means someone life can be saved let a drunk be a drunk. This is a real issue in the industry ppl. Hypocratic should be changed to Hypocritic.