Introduction to Pitfalls in Ophthalmology

Surgery “Horror Stories”

I will start off by saying that the surgeons involved with and in our “horror stories” will remain anonymous. It’s more fun that way of course. I appreciate the few friends and colleagues who offered up any surgical issues that they wanted to share. I did get a few responses to the tune of “My next mistake will be my first”. This is to be expected I guess. I sent that guy my favorite computer virus. So I guess his mistake would be not helping me. I digress… Anyway, we all cringe and cover our faces when we see the videos showing complications at time-of-surgery, but this is a necessary evil. If we didn’t talk about our mistakes, then those around us would learn the hard way as well. In 2000, the Institute of Medicine released To Err is Human. This book, besides bringing to light the scope of our problems with medical mistakes, also prompted many to look towards such entities as the airline industry. The mistakes made within this field are brought into light without fault and thus much more eagerly. That way all may learn from any single mistake. What a great idea huh? We in the medical field are trying to work our way towards this type of system.

We hope that you have learned something from the mistakes of others. If we are to continue to improve as physicians, we must be able to learn together.