Introduction of Surgeons Report Cards - Pros and Cons - Case Study Example

‘Surgeons’ Report Cards’, the notion of collecting and publicizing performance records on individual doctors, is a contentious issue. The medical community has for centuries enjoyed a position of largely unquestioned authority and respect. The oft-repeated advice “Ask your doctor” implies a comforting certainty that in the face of the most troubling problems a person could face – serious illness or injury – whatever the physician says or does will be correct and beneficial.

In recent years, however, the reputation of the medical community as a whole and doctors individually has lost much of its polish. Patients have begun to regard doctors critically, and consider them in a more ordinary, human light. They are still experts in a highly complex field, of course. But they are also people who, much like anyone else, are motivated by making a living and who, much like anyone else, are capable of making mistakes. In some tragic cases, mistakes can be disastrous. In the Bristol Royal Infirmary in England between 1988 and 1994, approximately 30 infants and very young children died as a result of poorly performed heart operations.

(Fox, 2001) And in the Bundaberg Hospital in Queensland, one surgeon’s record was revealed to be so reckless that he was subsequently charged with murder. (ABC, 2005)Even where there have not been such shocking and well-publicized incidents such as these, such as in the U.S., ever-increasing health care costs and growing demand for accountability from the public have put other pressures on the medical community. Since the early 1990s, the response in some states in the U.S. has been to provide public information on the success – or failures – of doctors and hospitals in certain kinds of procedures, mainly cardiac operations.

Following the scandals at Bristol and Bundaberg, the concept of the ‘report card’ has been taken up in the U.K. and Australia as well.The overall objective of the report cards is to reduce unnecessary mortality among patients. If hospitals and doctors are performing well, it is reasoned, more patients will choose them and have a better chance of recovering.