[Iatrogenesis. Individual error? System failure?].

Iatrogenesis has been considered for a long time as a situation created by the wrongdoing of an individual, that is, the physician. Nevertheless, we propose that medical error be considered a very complex "social omission" in which public funding, training of health professionals including administrators, and even the public education may be responsible for an adverse medical event, considering that medical officials are just a part of a system. Detection of latent errors and the epidemiologic study of those that have occurred, including differences in quality, must be considered as the main effort in prevention.

[Blood transfusion from cadavers].

Most of the transplant programs in our days are based on cadaveric donation; blood has been not recovered from dead bodies, except by some Soviet groups. We selected 16 subjects, eight with brain death and eight with "biological" death (heart arrest) that were considered as ideal donors. From them we obtained 23 units of whole blood, either by surgical dissection of the internal jugular vein, by puncture of the femoral artery or by puncture of a peripheral arm vein.

[Embolism caused by a bullet. Report of a case and review of the literature].

We describe the case of a 23 years old male, who suffered a 45 bullet wound in the arm and upper right hemithorax. He walked after his injury and 10 minutes later presented dizziness, cough and tachycardia. On admission a minor haemothorax was seen on a chest X ray, but the bullet was not seen.