İnce H, Yazıcı Y, Destan C, Aliustaoğlu S. Malpractice in Pathology: Case Report

ABSTRACT: Surgical pathology has a relatively low diagnostic error rate. The clinical significant diagnostic error rate in surgical pathology reported in the literature varies from 0.26% to 1.2%. Since the pathologists are the final step in the process of diagnosis; they play an important role among the physicians. The pathologists must maintain the high standard of care. Identifying the most frequent errors in pathology as follows: breast biopsy, melanoma and lymphoma, fine needle aspiration (FNA), frozen sectionand prostate biopsy. Proper analysis of medical malpractice cases is very important in the management of medical malpractice. It must be investigated on which level of healthcare services and by whom these failures were caused and all tests and treatments as well as follow-ups must be archived regularly and accurately in order to provide a significant referance for the standardization of professional as well as medico-legal procedures.

Key words: Acreditation, diagnostic error, pathologist, standardization.