And you thought YOU were scared to go into the hospital...

...turns out that the ones most scared of a stay at the medical center are the doctors themselves. In this month's TIME Magazine, a cover feature exploring the American medical system from a unique perspective: that of the doctor-patient.

In many ways American medicine is top-notch, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of very good reasons for your stomach to be rolling as the nurse straps the plastic bracelet around your wrist. From computer snafus to inexperienced residents to simple human goofs, the American hospital can be a scary place.

Consider this short excerpt from the article:

[D]octors are reluctant to be hands-off when it comes to a loved one's care. Until proper safeguards are built into the system, what a patient needs most, many doctors agree, is a sentinel--someone to take notice, be an advocate, ask questions. Now that the family doctor has been squeezed out of that role, someone else has to step in. But even a doctor--family member may not be able to counter the complexity of the system. Dr. Berwick of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement tells the story of his wife Ann's experience when she developed symptoms of a rare spinal-cord problem at a leading hospital. His concern was not just how she was treated; it was that so little of what happened to her was unusual. Despite his best efforts, tests were repeated unnecessarily, data were misread, information was misplaced. Things weren't just slipping through the cracks: the cracks were so big, there was no solid ground.

An attending neurologist said one drug should be started immediately, that "time is of the essence." That was on a Thursday morning at 10 a.m. The first dose was given 60 hours later, on Saturday night at 10 p.m. "Nothing I could do, nothing I did, nothing I could think of made any difference," Berwick said in a speech to colleagues. "It nearly drove me mad." One medication was discontinued by a physician's order on the first day of admission and yet was brought by a nurse every single evening for 14 days straight. "No day passed--not one--without a medication error," Berwick remembers. "Most weren't serious, but they scared us." Drugs that failed to help during one hospital admission were presented as a fresh, hopeful idea the next time. If that could happen to a doctor's wife in a top hospital, he says, "I wonder more than ever what the average must be like. The errors were not rare. They were the norm."

After he publicized his experiences, Berwick was besieged by other doctors saying, "If you think that's terrifying, wait until you hear my story." One distinguished professor of medicine whose wife was hospitalized in a great university hospital was too frightened to leave her bedside. "I felt that if I was not there, something awful would happen to her," he told Berwick. "I needed to defend her from the care."

If you're sick, it's still far and away the best thing to go to the hospital and seek treatment. But it's clear from the cases cited in the article that the best our system has to offer is by no means a guarantee of excellent care. Caveat emptor, indeed.