The Hippocratic Oath is often thought to mean "First do no harm," but it really says, "I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone." The Oath really suggests that doctors try to avoid harm to the best of their judgment. Some harm is an inevitable side effect of diagnosis and treatment because of random side effects that can be lethal. Doctors and patients accept some risk in the hope of gaining bigger benefits because some risk is unpreventable.
But preventable medical errors are also a serious problem. Generally speaking, preventable errors are the kind of stupid mistakes that are caused by distracted medical professionals who do something that they consciously know is wrong like removing the left kidney instead of the right kidney.
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