FREE NEJM E-TOC    HOME   |   SUBSCRIBE   |   CURRENT ISSUE   |   PAST ISSUES   |   COLLECTIONS   |   Search Term  Advanced Search

Sign in | Get NEJM's E-Mail Table of Contents — Free | Subscribe

Previous Volume 357:1682-1683 October 25, 2007 Number 17 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

	Full Text PDF PDA Full Text Add to Personal Archive Add to Citation Manager Notify a Friend E-mail When Cited E-mail When Letters Appear PubMed Citation

Since 1999, health care professionals have been focusing on To Err Is Human, the Institute of Medicine report that sounded alarms about medical error. As we have strived to reduce the rate of errors, systems-based practices such as electronic order entry and procedure checklists have proliferated. Meanwhile, little attention has been paid to the second half of the adage — "to forgive, divine." How can we characterize and address the human dimensions of medical error so that patients, families, and clinicians may reach some degree of closure and move toward forgiveness?

In interviews that our group conducted for a documentary . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

Dr. Delbanco is a professor of general medicine and primary care, and Dr. Bell an instructor in medicine, at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center — both in Boston.

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Gallagher, T. H. (2009). A 62-Year-Old Woman With Skin Cancer Who Experienced Wrong-Site Surgery: Review of Medical Error. JAMA 302: 669-677 [Abstract] [Full Text]