Untoward injuries are unacceptably common in medical treatment, at times with tragic consequences for patients. The phrases 'an epidemic of error' and 'the medical toll' have been coined to describe this problem of 'iatrogenic harm', which it has been suggested may have contributed to 98,000 deaths per year in the US. Some of these incidents are the result of negligence on the part of doctors, but more usually they are no more than inevitable concomitants of the complexity of modern healthcare. This book is fundamentally about distinguishing the former from the latter. Although medicine is used as the book's primary example, the points made apply equally to aviation, industrial activities, and many other fields of human endeavour. The book advocates a more informed alternative to the blaming culture which has increasingly come to dominate our response to accidents, whether in the medical field or elsewhere.

‘[A] superb book … Merry and McCall Smith are not simply out to protect doctors: their central thesis is that many ‘negligent’ incidents should not attract blame, but they also support reporting systems because ‘there are too many medical accidents’ … I do know some people who should be forced to read Errors, Medicine and the Law.’

Source: British Medical Journal

‘It is written in exemplary English by a cardiac anaesthetist (A. Merry) and a professor of medical law (A. McCall Smith), and must surely be of interest to anyone practising at the ‘sharp end’ of medicine.’

Source: British Journal of Surgery

‘Errors, Medicine and the Law is a most timely contribution to the enduring debate about how society should respond to accidents in general, and medical accidents in particular ... This is a highly readable, accessible text that should be read by all those who are interested in the compensation debate, and the field of tort law in particular.’

Jane Wright Source: Web Journal of Current Legal Issues

‘This is a book that will interest those who have concerns that errors occurring in medicine are too often equated with negligence … The major goal of the book is to seek a fundamental re-evaluation of the way in which we think about accidents and blame, and for this it must be applauded.’

Source: Journal of the Medical Protection Society

‘Errors, Medicine and the Law is the latest contribution to eschew the individual blame mentality in favour of a systems analysis approach. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the topic under review, the authors, a cardiac anesthetist and a professor of medical law, draw from a wide range of literatures. As they remark, ‘error events’ are a global problem occurring in a number of different settings. The result is a book that will interest, amongst others, lawyers, medics, psychologists, and sociologists.’

Source: Medical Law Review

‘The arguments raised in this excellent book are timely to all professionals working to protect and preserve the health of people.’

Source: Ergonomics

‘Medical error is an important issue, and it won’t go away … we can deal with it better if we understand the basic science. Errors, Medicine and the Law goes far beyond medicine and law, into the psychology of error, the sociology of conflict and even the moral philosophy of forgiveness. It’s a good place to start.’

‘… exceptionally illuminating … a book that every reflective tort lawyer ought to read.’

Source: The Cambridge Law Journal

‘… a sympathetic and humanising account of medical error, which usefully redresses the pro-plaintiff tone of medical law literature of the past twenty years.’

Source: The Irish Jurist