"If you compare a pilot to a surgeon, there are certain similarities: they both perform a very technical task, sometimes over long hours, and if they cock it up, people die. I wonder if surgeons go on medical forums, and moan at GPs or patients for discussing medical procedures? "You're not a cardiac surgeon, so stop speculating about failed pacemakers!"
I say, steady on! If these professions are in any way analogous, I'm going by sea.
Don't know about elsewhere but the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine cites avoidable medical mistakes as the eighth leading cause of death in the US; ahead of car smashes, breast cancer and AIDS. Furthermore, there is no legal limit placed on the number of hours a physician may work in a given period and 70% of surgeons do not believe that fatigue affects their performance in the operating room. Since there are no Federal laws requiring hospitals to report deaths and injuries to patients caused in error, the picture could well be bleaker and probably is.
If these statistics (or anything like them) were applied to our business, we really would have a problem.