⚠️ Toward a Theory of Medical Fallibility

I recently skimmed an essay from 1975 titled Toward a Theory of Medical Fallibility. A few quotes from the article:

• Therefore, where there is scientific activity, there is a partial ignorance -- the ignorance that exists as a precondition for scientific progress. And since ignorance is a precondition of progress, where there is the possibility of progress there is the possibility of error. This ignorance of what is not yet known is the permanent state of all science and a source of error even when all the internal norms of science have been fully respected.
• Error may indeed arise from the present state of scientific ignorance or from willfulness or negligence. But it may also arise precisely from this third factor which we have called necessary fallibility in respect to particulars.
• The encouragement of this inflated belief in the competence of the physician is of course reinforced by the practice of not keeping systematic and accessible records of medical error. Yet everyone knows that this is a false confidence.
• Indeed, the only profession of which we know which fully and publicly documents predictive successes and failures is that of horse-racing correspondents in Great Britain.
• The first reaction of physicians to the invitation to dispense with the masks of infallibility is likely to be a humane alarm at the insecurity which a frank acceptance of medical fallibility might engender in the patient. But we wonder whether the present situation, in which the expectations of patients are so very often disappointed during medical treatment, is not a worse source of insecurity.

As computer/software systems get more complex, are there parallels?