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Can doctors be fully trusted? Trusted to do what? Make an accurate diagnosis? Prescribe the most desirable treatment? Act ethically and unequivocally in your best interest?

It would probably be fair to say that anyone who enters this demanding profession does so with one aim in mind - to accomplish all of these things.

However, mistakes are made and sometimes these are more frequent, or of a nature that we (the patients) find unacceptable. Medicine is not always an exact science and human beings are not and will never be infallible.

Most professions have their fare share of competent, average and incompetent staff and the medical profession is no exception. Some surgeons are gifted and able to perform near miracles that other surgeons might find impossible. Some nurses were born to nurse and do so with unfailing compassion and dedication that others find difficult to emulate. The world is full with people who have varying degrees of adeptness and mastery in their particular field, from the lawyer who has never lost a case, to the long distance runner who has never lost a race.

The question "can doctors be fully trusted?" could be applied to any number of professional people. Can we trust the pilot not to make a mistake when landing the aircraft we're on? That would depend, I suppose, on how much experience said pilot has had.

When deciding how much you can trust your doctor it wouldn't be unreasonable to use their experience as your "yard stick." Apart from this, I would say that a doctor can be trusted no more and no less than anyone else in an exacting profession.

There are few of us who can boast a career entirely void of mistakes, and I am assuming here that the interpretation of "trust" is based on the absence of errors. However, for some of us the repercussions of a blunder could be, at best a reprimand and at worst the "sack". For instance a letter typed erroneously by a secretary could cause embarrassment to the law firm where she works.

But if a dentist should extract the wrong tooth, or if a doctor makes an incorrect diagnosis, their profession is such that there could be far reaching consequences. The obligation for accuracy within the medical profession is overwhelming and this must weigh very heavily on those who choose a career where the lives of others are in their hands.

Can doctors be fully trusted? No, I don't think you can ever trust anyone to never make a mistake. Can you trust a doctor to act without prevarication? Yes I believe you can.

Learn more about this author, Libbie Reed.
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