The way they guessed this completely made up number and the fact that it is being reported as real is sad. I can count on one hand the number of deaths caused by medical errors I have seen in my 25 years in medicine. Most errors do not lead to any morbidity or mortality. If this was a real number every person would have numerous relatives that had died due to medical errors. This is not the case. These fanciful fear mongering reports do nothing to reduce medical errors.