Abstract

According to the World Health Organization (2023), 2.6 million people die annually due to preventable adverse events in hospitals. This data is still underestimated, as the study evaluated only 150 countries. Each year, out of the 19.4 million people treated in hospitals in Brazil, 1.3 million experience at least one side effect caused by negligence or recklessness during medical treatment. In 2021, the Federal Council of Medicine reported that 92% of colleges do not meet at least one of the three parameters deemed ideal for the proper operation of medical courses. Every hour, three medical error lawsuits (The National Justice Council states that 3 medical error lawsuits are filed every hour) are filed in Brazil, and medical culpability finds practical and doctrinal differences at civil and criminal levels. The implementation of evidence-based medicine can reduce the numbers indicated and to this end, supported by the medical literature, the practitioner has the opportunity to contain the error and, as a consequence, the accounting of deaths and unexpected events using the exact science for that. The research thus recommends strategies to reduce avoidable errors and calls for stricter penalties for gross error.

Keywords:

Culpability, medical error, duty of care, probability, prediction

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