• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Thursday, October 2, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

Are healthcare providers ‘second victims’ of medical errors?

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
April 2, 2019
in Health
Reading Time: 2 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Editorial argues that term promotes the belief that patient harm is not preventable

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Apr. 3, 2019) — When you type the phrase “victim of medical error” into your search engine, you expect to see scores of stories and images featuring patients and families whose lives have been devastated by a healthcare provider’s unintentional, preventable action.

Astonishingly, what fills the screen instead are images of anguished men and women in white coats or scrubs.

That bewildering result is the apparent effect of a 2000 editorial penned by Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Albert Wu, who proposed the term “second victim” in an attempt to bring attention to the need for emotional support for doctors who are involved in a medical error.

The term has been perpetuated by authors and educators and has even been extended to include healthcare organizations, which are now deemed “third victims.”

It’s time to abandon the term “second victim,” said the University of Kentucky’s Melissa Clarkson in an editorial for The BMJ, one of the world’s oldest general medical journals.

Clarkson, who co-authored the editorial with three mothers whose children who died after medical errors, said that the term “subtly promotes the belief that patient harm is random, caused by bad luck, and simply not preventable.”

“This mindset is incompatible with the safety of patients and the accountability that patients and families expect from healthcare providers,” they argued.

Clarkson et al stress that patient communities and their advocates do not question the need to support providers who have been involved in an incident of patient harm, but they ask the healthcare community to pause and reflect on the “second victim” moniker.

“Opinion is growing that [the term] is inappropriate, including among patients and healthcare professionals….even Wu has recently acknowledged concerns about its use,” they wrote.

And while the “second victim” label may help providers and institutions to cope with an incident of medical harm, “it is a threat to enacting the deep cultural changes needed to achieve a patient-centered environment focused on patient safety,” they added.

“Providers and institutions must break down this barrier, engaging with patients, families, and advocacy organizations to understand more broadly how everyone — patients, families, and providers — is affected by medical harm.”

###

Clarkson is on the faculty of the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Biomedical Informatics. She became an advocate for safety and transparency in the medical system when her father died after a series of medical errors seven years ago.

Media Contact
Laura Wright
[email protected]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l1233

Tags: Medical/Scientific EthicsMedicine/Health
Share14Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

VISTA Regulation in Tumor Cells Affects NSCLC Immunity

October 2, 2025

Barriers Facing Roma Women in Primary Healthcare

October 2, 2025

$3.7 Million NIH Grant Supports IU Research on ADHD Medication’s Impact on Substance Use in Youth

October 2, 2025

Ambient AI Scribes: A Breakthrough in Reducing Administrative Load and Combating Professional Burnout

October 2, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    91 shares
    Share 36 Tweet 23
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    78 shares
    Share 31 Tweet 20
  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    74 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19
  • How Donor Human Milk Storage Impacts Gut Health in Preemies

    64 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

VISTA Regulation in Tumor Cells Affects NSCLC Immunity

Enhancing CAR T Cell Therapy for Solid Tumors

Tracking Raccoon Domestication Through Citizen Science Images

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 60 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.