The patient had a UTI?  Well, doctor, when did you take the catheter out?  Isn't that a bit late?  Why didn't you do it the day before?

There was a wound infection?  Isn't this the third one this month?  What kind of bowel prep did you use?  What antibiotics were given and when were they given?  How long did you scrub for?

The patient died?  Was a cardiac history appreciated in the pre-op work-up?  Why weren't these EKG changes noted?  Did you think to get a CAT scan, or were you more interested in a good night's sleep?  It says in the chart that the nurse called but you took 10 minutes to answer - where were you?  What drugs were given during the code?  Who called the code?  Why so soon?

The really shitty part about Morbidity and Mortality Conference (M&M) was that the criticisms were pointed and often justified.  The hard lesson was that medicine was a learning process.  The "blame game" was an integral part of our education and our becoming doctors.  By our small mistakes, we avoided the larger ones.  By our large mistakes, we learned humility.

So when I hear this excuse for a Presidential administration tell us that "now is not the time to engage in the blame game," I get sick to my stomach.  The time to face up to mistakes is as soon as they are made.  The time to fix them can only come after they have been acknowledged.

Now is indeed the time.  

It is always the time.