Appropriate blame of others without a culture of blame

Is there a place for blame in healthcare? An interesting exchange on this question took place between Daniel Tigard and Elizbeth Duthie, Ian Fischer and Richard Frankel in 2019. In his central appeal to self-blame, I argue that Tigard was successful—and actually did not go far enough—in identifying a place for ‘notions of blame’ in healthcare. However, I contend that his critics were right to disavow the culture of blame and his notion of taking the blame for unavoidable harm. I argue that even outside a culture of blame, there can still be a (minor) place for blaming others as well as ourselves for avoidable medical errors (even the first-time unintentional ones).