Editorial

Abstract

Doctors have just received breaking news: medical error is the third leading cause of death in the US. In an analysis published in the British Medical Journal(1), Professor Martin A. Makary and research fellow Michael Daniel assess medical error contribution to mortality and call for better reporting. They say the annual list of the most common causes of death in the United States, compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is created using death certificates filled out by physicians, funeral directors, medical examiners, and coroners. A major limitation of the death certificate is that it relies on assigning an International Classification of Disease (ICD) code to the cause of death, and human and system factors are causes of death not associated with an ICD code.