Death Informative Speech

Do you know which the leading causes of death in the USA are? If you have guessed heart diseases and cancer, you’re right. Next on the list are chronic lower respiratory diseases and accidents.

However, a new study has emerged, which states that medical errors might be the third leading cause of death in the US, right after heart disease and cancer.

That sounds scary, right? Let’s take a look at the details, shall we?

The CDC facts

The Central for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) complies a list of the most common causes of death every year. The purpose of this list is to inform the public, raise awareness for these diseases and set priorities for future research.

How does the CDC create the list? Well, they use the death certificates, issued by:

 doctors

 medical examiners

 coroners

 funeral directors

But this method for defining cause of death has one

So if a person dies of a heart attack due to a doctor’s misdiagnosis, the written cause of death will be a heart attack, not medical error.

A new study uncovers horrible facts

Officially, the CDC reports around 150,000 deaths due to medical errors in a year. But in 2016, a new study conducted by Dr. Martin Makary from the John Hopkins University School of Medicine appeared.

Dr. Makary and his colleague Michael Daniel started by studying death rate data (2000-2008) and then hospitalization rates (2013). Using other published studies, they concluded that medical errors cause 251,000 deaths in the USA on average.

If you divide this number by 365 days, you’ll see that nearly 690 people die every day due to a medical error. For comparison, 155,000 people die a year from chronic lower respiratory diseases and 146,000 of accidental injuries.

What’s more, the study only encompasses hospital deaths. It doesn’t include deaths at homes or nursery homes, so according to Dr. Makary, the actual number could be even larger.

What’s a medical