Medical mistakes: Discipline offenders

I am writing in response to the article on Johns Hopkins' gift of $10 million for the building of a patient safety institute ("Hopkins turns to patient safety," May 27). In my opinion, why do hospitals need money to fix medical mistakes? Aren't doctors getting paid to help patients already, without the mistakes?

I'm only a high school student, but I plan to move forward into the medical field. I would think that if there are so many medical mistakes that you would confront the doctor making them. Hospitals should take the doctors making mistakes and withdraw them from surgery, or offer them more training, or even go as far as taking that doctor out of practice for a certain period of time.

I honestly don't see the point in giving that amount of money to building a safety institute when doctors shouldn't be making the mistakes in the first place. Ten million dollars is a lot of money that could be going to charitable foundations, or used to find cures for certain diseases. Instead it's being used to help careless doctors.

Haley Pruitt, Bel Air