Maggie Koerth-Baker reports:
Massachusetts General Hospital's Dr. David Ring performed the wrong surgery on a patient. This kind of thing isn't as uncommon as you might hope. One study showed 1 in 7 hospitalized Medicare patients got the wrong treatment. What is rare: Ring apologized to his patient immediately and has gone on to write up a public acknowledgment of his mistake with an eye toward preventing future mishapsin the New England Journal of Medicine.
It's important to acknowledge this kind of integrity and personal accountability. Especially when considering how our medical malpractice laws discourage it. And how absent it appears to be in every major walk of life.
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