Iatrogenic condition
What it means
Harm caused by healthcare itself rather than by the underlying disease — adverse drug effects, healthcare-associated infection, procedural complications, pressure damage from immobility, delirium precipitated by admission, and the cumulative harm of over-investigation. It is among the commonest causes of avoidable inpatient harm, and it is the category doctors are least practised at looking for, because it requires suspecting our own actions.
Worked example
An 82-year-old admitted with a chest infection is started on co-amoxiclav, given a catheter "to monitor output", and prescribed zopiclone because the ward is noisy. Four days later she has Clostridioides difficile diarrhoea, a catheter-associated urinary infection and a fall at night. None of that was the pneumonia. All of it was us.
In the exam
A patient admitted for a straightforward problem develops a new complication during the admission, and the team is investigating it as though it were a fresh disease.
What settles it
Ask what we have DONE to this patient — every new drug, line, catheter, procedure and period of immobility — before investigating a new problem as a new disease. The timeline is the diagnostic tool: iatrogenic harm follows an intervention rather than the illness.
Classically confused with
Progression of the underlying disease
Source: GMC Good Medical Practice 2024 · NICE NG5 (medicines optimisation) · Duty of candour