To the Editor: The information in the article by Bellomo et al,1 which documents postoperative serious adverse events in a teaching hospital, contains no surprises; nor does it support some of the authors' conclusions. In 1995, the findings of the Quality in Australian Health Care Study2 were immediately sensationalised by the press with the headline "Hospital errors kill 18 000 a year".3 The article by Bellomo and colleagues provoked similar predictable media sensation.
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