The influence of work process in the medical mistake

Abstract

By observing medical work conditions in Brazil we notice the inadequacy of the health system, medicine patterns and social demand. Physicians perform their functions in a precarious health system, not having at one’s disposal enough equipment, sickbeds, medicines and professionals to attend patients, hence causing long lines and stress in the working environment. The rationality that orients medicine causes changes from the point of view of the technological and scientific evolution, and demands both specialized professionals and sophisticated equipments. The medical treatment loses its human character of caring for the sick to acquire a technical one, where the procedure itself is valued to the detriment of the final result. The specialized physician is no more the ‘health’ professional of the patient, but the one who prescribes conduct to ‘a certain illness’.