If Hadiza Bawa-Garba worked in the US she would still be a doctor

If Hadiza Bawa-Garba worked in the US she would still be a doctor In the individualistic US medical errors are blamed on systems but in the collectivist NHS individuals are blamed for errors.

When I moved to Philadelphia for training in radiology, three things struck me about the US – the numerous types of bagels, defensive medicine, and the amount of support for trainee doctors. American medicine, though famously litigious, protects its residents (trainees), who work as hard as their British counterparts, and often make critical decisions, sometimes unsupervised, but rarely unsupported.

I’ve trained in both systems, as a surgical senior house officer in Britain and a radiology resident in the US, and the difference between the two systems for trainees is stark. In the US residents must gradually earn their independence; in Britain independence isn’t earned but assumed. I was on call overnight, unsupervised in a busy A&E in London 18 months after qualifying from medical school, with no consultant or registrar on site. This would be unthinkable in the US. I never complained because I enjoyed the independence and felt supported by the nurses. In hindsight, I feel goosebumps knowing that I was only one catastrophic error from facing the same fate as Hadiza Bawa-Garba, the paediatric registrar convicted for manslaughter for missing sepsis. Continue reading... The Guardian