LettersIn medical incident probes, stats and facts are as vital as transparency

News that a patient’s death could potentially have been caused by an alleged medical blunder is no doubt upsetting. I trust the investigation will uncover the facts of the case.

I wish to comment not on this specific case, but more generally – from my perspective as a specialist in cardiology.

First, medical statistics and medical literature do tell us that heart attacks can be fatal.

I also wish to point out the nuanced but fundamental difference between a “medical blunder” and a “medical complication”. This is not semantics or medical protectionism, wherein doctors hide each other’s mistakes. On the contrary, let’s just say that medical politics – such as a doctor falsely accusing a competitor to get ahead – does not happen only in Korean medical dramas.