Among other things I have worked as a researcher, a Psychiatrist, a Neurosurgeon, and a web developper. Reading comments about how much distrust there is in doctors saddens me. Medical errors are killing people but it has to be put in perspective to the reality of modern medicine in hospitals. Usually medical errors kill patients that are the most vulnerable, who need several invasive acts, strong and potentially harmful treatments, who need to stay in bed, in the hospital, for days or even months. The first comment by ada1981 talks about how acute medicine seems to be doing ok, that is not because acute doctors are good, and chronic doctor are asshole sold to big pharma. It is because longer stay in the hospital means a more severe condition, and an incremental risk of yes, preventable errors. Actually, this feeling of mistrust is one of the main reason I stopped practicing, the other reason was that I was frustrated by the way doctors have to practice medicine and is of course related to this issue. The way we practice medicine has not changed for years, although medical knowledge increase exponentially and doubles every two years. This immobility is mainly due to three things: the highly hierarchical and rigid structure of the medical field that resist adaptability and innovation, economic constraints imposed by big pharma and insurances who basically decide of how medicine is practiced in the whole world, as well as misguided political/societal views as to what should be a doctor of the 21st century, what tools should he use and how should he study.

In the article, the author - who by the way seems pretty biased and judging from previous work to hold a profound grudge against physicians, is comparing doctors to pilots, and medical errors to crashes. And besides the simple demagogic argument of doctors are dumb and proud and pilot are better formed and humble, the reality is that pilot are using machines worth millions that are able to diagnose, fix, and steer themselves. They are three in the cockpit, and communicate with flight controllers for the most critical parts of the flight. They have real time weather prediction and course change. Their tools are evolving in time, does she even know that modern airplanes produce more than a terabyte of data on every flight ? This data is used to make airplane safer every year, update software, hardware, security...

Practice of medicine has to change yes, and article pointing at medical errors will help change minds and practices in the coming years. Technology will play a big role in it.

But the author, and some people commenting here should remember that pilots are not battling death. People who die in hospitals from medical errors are usually the one who are suffering from chronic and hard to treat diseases. You all want to live forever, blaming doctors of the sad reality that most of you will die from a chronic disease.

Instead of drawing a dark portrait of physicians who for the most part work selflessly to make a positive change in the world, you should ask yourself: why is there medical errors, what can they do better ? What could they do in this context ? Go to school 18 years instead of 12? Work 120 hours instead of 90 ?

The solution is a deep change of how medicine is practiced, a revolution driven by technology (IOT, big data, AI) and the open science movement. But you have to realize that this revolution was not possible before maybe 4-5 years ago. Now it is, and soon it will change.