Facing up to medical error

Won't it be a terrible downer to have a whole issue devoted to medical error? Aren't doctors in Britain taking enough of a beating as it is? Are you really going to put a picture of a plane crash on the cover of the BMJ? These are reasonable questions, but we have no doubt that we are right to devote most of this BMJ to medical error and patient safety. It's essential that doctors, patients, and politicians worldwide grasp the scale of the problem. That is the first step on the long …