Everyone thinks that their doctor is error free. Only other people's doctors make the kind of mistakes which end up in lawsuits. The reality is that all doctors make mistakes and by holding physicians to an impossible standard, which they themselves not only tolerate but insist upon, the system never changes and the same mistakes are made over and over again at different places at different times. Because they occur routinely at 5,000 hospitals across the country, they do not make the newspapers and there is no public outcry for reform as occurs when 300 people die at once when a 747 crashes. It is way past the time for all of us, including our medical providers, to realize that, the myth of infallibility is just that, a myth.
People make mistakes, and doctors are people.
If someone is injured or killed as a result, their family is entitled to be compensated. In addition, analysis ought to take place as to what caused the mistake in the first place. System errors ought to be corrected if they exist, and systems ought to be designed in advance to accept the inevitability of error, plan for it and, if possible, avoid its occurrence.