Surgical patients in New York hospitals certainly dread the possibility of errors during a procedure. A changing attitude about disclosing mistakes to patients, however, could result in them hearing about mistakes more often. Commenting about the challenges of informing patients, a professor of health policy, management, medicine and surgery said that physicians also endure negative emotions about their mistakes. Communicating them to patients is a challenge.

The American Council of Graduate Medical Education has imposed a rule on medical residents limiting the amount of time that they can spend at the hospital to 80 hours per week. The rule applies regardless of specialty or whether the residents are working in New York or elsewhere. While the regulation was made to address doctor fatigue, some residents oppose the restriction because it does not take into account individual training programs. Many also argue that this rule can impact patients adversely.

Many New York residents believe that the United States health care system is among the best in the world. According to the Institute of Medicine, however, nearly 98,000 people are killed from medical malpractice every year. While some medical errors may be unavoidable, others are caused by acts of negligence. In 2004, a New York woman sued a fertility clinic after giving birth to a baby that was obviously not her husbands. It emerged that the clinic had used semen from a stranger by mistake.