Samuels is unusual among doctors in embracing mistakes, recognizing that it is through mistakes that knowledge develops. Instead of beating himself up about them, he keeps a careful record of his mistakes, categorizes them, and shares them at conferences and other venues. In his blog post entitled “In Defense of Mistakes,” he states that without errors “there would be no further evolution of medical thought” and if doctors accepted rather than feared mistakes and saw them as opportunities for learning rather than shame, they could actually focus on the real enemy, which is illness.13 This open
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