[Effect of errors (particularly one's own!) on making surgical decisions]

Looking for medical errors in clinical practice we reviewed several cases from our daily indication and case conference, 6 cases discussed in the lethality conference and 9 which were treated by legal institutions. The points of criticism were analysed. We discriminated between diagnostic, therapeutic failures and those of organisation. The basis were 4045 patients with 4583 operations during the year 1989. The overall lethality was 1.2%. The instruments of avoiding medical errors in individual and general sense were shown.