1. COMMITTEE ON QUALITY HEALTH CARE IN AMERICA, INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE, To ERR Is HUMAN: BUILDING A SAFER HEALTH SYSTEM (Linda T. Kohn et al. eds. 1999). See also Elmer V. Villanueva & Jeremy N. Anderson, Estimates of Complications of Medical Care in the Adult U.S. Population, 1 BMC HEALTH SERV. RES. 2 (2001 ), available at www.Biomedcentral.com/1472-683/1/2 (reaching the same conclusion but with better scientific analysis); Rodney A. Haywood & Timothy P. Hofer, Estimating Hospital Deaths Due to Preventable Error: Preventability Is in the Eye of the Review, 286 J.A.M.A. 415 (2001) (concluding that fewer than 15,000 patients die each year from preventable errors after using different methodological definitions on a different patient population).
2. ' Jeremy Maraer, Assisted by Robotics, Doctors Performing Surgeries from Afar, CHI. TRIB., Oct. 25,2000, at Al. See also http://www.intuitivesurgical.coin. At present, FDA approval of this medical device is limited to the performance of cholecystectomies, Nissen fundoplications, and the harvesting of internal mammary arteries.
3. For example, just before laparoscopy was introduced to the market, Charles K. McSherry M.D., published his outstanding work describing outcomes in over 10,000 patients who underwent open Cholecystectomy. C. K. McSherry, Cholecystectomy: The Golden Standard, 158 AM. J. SURG. 174 (1989). Similar results are now reported for patients undergoing laparoscopic Cholecystectomy. Stelter et al., supra note 49. Regardless of such good clinical results, however, even within the medical community there remains a perception that laparoscopic Cholecystectomy is commonly associated with injury to the bile ducts. See Jo Ann Coleman, Bile Duct Injuries in Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy: Nursing Perspective, 10 AACN CLIN. ISSUES 442 (1999).
4. Laura Pleicones, Passing the Essence Test: Health Care Providers Escape Strict Liability for Medical Devices, 50 S.C.L. REV. 463, 470 (1999).
5. 879 S.W.2d 618 (Mo. App. 1994) (holding that hospitals (not physicians) were strictly liable for surgically implanted TMJ prosthetics). See also Christopher L. Thompson, Imposing Strict Products Liability on Medical Care Providers, 60 Mo. L. REV. 711 (1995). However, since the publication of Pleicones' article, supra note 64, Bell has been overruled by Budding v. SSM Healthcare Sys., 19 S.W.3d678(Mo.2000).