I’ve looked this up before, this is the best a very quick search found.
Estimates for annual iatrogenic deaths in the United States vary significantly depending on the definition of “iatrogenic” and the source of the data, ranging from 44,000 to over 780,000 per year
Institute of Medicine (2000): The seminal To Err Is Human report estimated that medical errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 hospitalized Americans annually.
JAMA Commentary (2001): A widely cited analysis by Dr. Barbara Starfield estimated up to 250,000 deaths per year, categorizing them as 12,000 from unnecessary surgery, 7,000 from medication errors, 20,000 from other hospital errors, 80,000 from hospital-acquired infections, and 106,000 from adverse drug effects.
Johns Hopkins Study (2016): Research published in the BMJ by Dr. Marty Makary estimated approximately 251,454 deaths per year specifically attributable to medical errors in hospitals.
Broader Definitions: Some analyses, such as Death by Medicine, aggregate various causes (including outpatient errors and adverse drug reactions) to estimate nearly 780,000 annual deaths, potentially making it the third leading cause of death.
Recent Trends: A 2024 study analyzing CDC data from 1999 to 2020 found 531,792 iatrogenic error-related deaths over that period, noting a significant increase in mortality rates from 2015 to 2020.
Many experts and critics argue that official numbers are underestimates because only a small percentage of iatrogenic events are reported or recorded on death certificates.
I keep seeing memes that doctors kill far more people than guns, so your research is accurate and likely understated exponentially, as even experts have pointed out.