Marianne Paget's The Unity of Mistakes has long been considered a landmark text on the nature of medical error. Paget - who herself died because of a medical error - argued that mistakes are an intrinsic part of the clinical process. Encompassing a much wider range of error than the terms "malpractice," "incompetence," or "negligence" denote, The Unity of Mistakes takes an existential view of medical work in which things go wrong as a matter of course, and probes what Paget called the "complex sorrow" that can result when things do go wrong. This new paperback edition contains a Foreword by Joan Cassell, anthropologist and author of Expected Miracles: Surgeons at Work.
Marianne Paget'sThe Unity of Mistakeshas long been considered a landmark text on the nature of medical error. Paget-who herself died because of a medical error-argued that mistakes are an intrinsic part of the clinical process. Encompassing a much wider range of error than the terms "malpractice," "incompetence,"or "negligence" denote,The Unity of Mistakestakes an existential view of medical work in which things go wrong as a matter of course, and probes what Paget called the "complex sorrow"that can result when things do go wrong. This new paperback edition contains a Foreword by Joan Cassell, anthropologist and author ofExpected Miracles: Surgeons at Work. "I began this study when I became aware of the anguish of clinical action and of the moral ambiguity of being a clinician, a person who acts, acts sometimes mistakenly, and, therefore, lives with the experience of being wrong." With this statement, Marianne Paget introduces her study of medical mistakes and their meaning. Using as her "text" in-depth interviews with forty doctors, she explores the subjective experience of physicians who inevitably make mistakes. Marianne Paget argues that mistakes are an intrinsic feature of medical work which she calls an error-ridden activity. Mistakes involve action and action contains risk. Since medical mistakes put at risk human beings (not just the acted upon but the actors), her concern is with the subtle effects this endemic danger has upon clinical work. Through close textual analysis, the author examines the ways in which particular actions (which seemed right at the time) are recognized as errors and responded to. Her study encompasses a much wider range of error than the terms "malpractice," "incompetence," or "negligence" denote. She takes an existential view of medical work in which things go wrong as a matter of course and probes what she calls the "complex sorrow" that can result. Author note:Marianne A. Paget(1940-1989) was a sociologist and researcher who in the course of her career held positions at various universities, and at the time of her death was a research associate in the Department of Sociology at Brandeis University.Joan Cassellis Research Associate in the department of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, and the author of several books, includingExpected Miracles: Surgeons at WorkandThe Surgeon in the Woman's Body.
In medicine, a single mistake in an otherwise spotless career can determine the rest of your life—even if the mistake was not your own Elizabeth Taylor is a gifted surgeon—the only female consultant at her hospital. But while operating on a young woman with life–threatening blood poisoning, something goes horribly wrong. In the midst of a new scheme to publicly report surgeons' performance, her colleagues begin to close ranks, and Elizabeth's life is thrown into disarray. Tough and abrasive, Elizabeth has survived and succeeded in this most demanding, palpably sexist field. But can she survive a single mistake? A Mistake is a page–turning procedural thriller about powerful women working in challenging spheres. The novel examines how a survivor who has successfully navigated years of a culture of casual sexism and machismo finds herself suddenly in the fight of her life. When a mistake is life–threatening, who should ultimately be held responsible? Carl Shuker has produced some of the finest writing on the physicality of medical intervention, where life–changing surgery is detailed moment by moment in a building emergency. A Mistake daringly illustrates the startling mix of the coolly intellectual and deeply personal inherent in the life and work of a surgeon.
The idea of the Old Testament as a source of historical information was replaced by an understanding of the texts as a means for early Jewish society to interpret its past. 'Biblical Studies and the Failure of History' brings together key essays which reflect the trajectory of this scholarly shift.
