cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board  

Go Back   cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board > non-Sports > Current Events

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 03-14-2008, 05:18 AM   #21
Archaea
Assistant to the Regional Manager
 
Archaea's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: The Orgasmatron
Posts: 24,338
Archaea is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Mike and ER represent the spectrum in med mal.

The Medical Establishment takes the line that med mal almost never happens and that sufficient safeguards are in place to avoid all but the rarest of mistakes.

I would agree that if all physicians followed their training all of the time, very few mistakes would result in med mal harming a patient.

OTOH, with workloads and income expectations, mistakes occur in larger percentages than the medical establishment is wont to admit, yet not in the proportions the plaintiff's bar would have you believe.

ER arguing that nurses will alway catch the obvious mistakes is simply not true. With rushes, foreign nurses and the sometimes subservient attitude of nurses you can find nurses who won't question a doctor's orders. But plenty will question them and many mistakes are caught.

Mike is correct that hospitals especially and many physicians work immediately to cover up mistakes once something awful has happened. There are sincere, conscientious physicians who will self-examine upon a bad result, but the consequences of being too forthright are severe and militate against total honesty even with peer review protections in place.

It is a complex problem, but not aspect of the health care establishment encompasses enough of the issues for a universal review to be possible. In short, no matter who performs the study, it's likely to be slanted one way or another.
__________________
Ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα
Archaea is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-14-2008, 03:23 PM   #22
landpoke
Senior Member
 
landpoke's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: North Central God's Country
Posts: 1,534
landpoke is on a distinguished road
Default

0.03% of the population seems like an acceptable loss rate to me.
__________________
I see a hobo. And when I see the hobo, I think to myself, "This man is poor. His monetary value is low, and my monetary value is high, and it's a shame that he is himself. What can I do?"
landpoke is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-14-2008, 03:24 PM   #23
Tex
Senior Member
 
Tex's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 8,596
Tex is on a distinguished road
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by landpoke View Post
0.03% of the population seems like an acceptable loss rate to me.
The more interesting stat is, what percentage of people who receive hospital medical treatment is it? I'm guessing much higher (possibly too high to be believable).
__________________
"Have we been commanded not to call a prophet an insular racist? Link?"
"And yes, [2010] is a very good year to be a Democrat. Perhaps the best year in decades ..."

- Cali Coug

"Oh dear, granny, what a long tail our puss has got."

- Brigham Young
Tex is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-14-2008, 03:29 PM   #24
landpoke
Senior Member
 
landpoke's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: North Central God's Country
Posts: 1,534
landpoke is on a distinguished road
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tex View Post
The more interesting stat is, what percentage of people who receive hospital medical treatment is it? I'm guessing much higher (possibly too high to be believable).
Yeah, I couldn't find that stat so I settled for a simple, dumb pseudo-lawyer statistic.
__________________
I see a hobo. And when I see the hobo, I think to myself, "This man is poor. His monetary value is low, and my monetary value is high, and it's a shame that he is himself. What can I do?"
landpoke is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-14-2008, 03:34 PM   #25
Archaea
Assistant to the Regional Manager
 
Archaea's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: The Orgasmatron
Posts: 24,338
Archaea is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by landpoke View Post
0.03% of the population seems like an acceptable loss rate to me.
It's certainly less than lost through raping and pillaging the land.
__________________
Ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα
Archaea is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-14-2008, 04:03 PM   #26
landpoke
Senior Member
 
landpoke's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: North Central God's Country
Posts: 1,534
landpoke is on a distinguished road
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Archaea View Post
It's certainly less than lost through raping and pillaging the land.
I glory in being a small cog in Big Oil's death machine.

P.S. I never pegged you for a long-haired patchouli stink hippie. Just goes to show I guess.
__________________
I see a hobo. And when I see the hobo, I think to myself, "This man is poor. His monetary value is low, and my monetary value is high, and it's a shame that he is himself. What can I do?"
landpoke is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-15-2008, 05:34 AM   #27
ERCougar
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,589
ERCougar is on a distinguished road
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeWaters View Post
And add to your list, mistakes made that are covered up, and the patied is lied to about the mistake.

This brings to mind another serious mistake. A doctor orders something like triple the recommended highest dose of lithium over the weekend (because he is inexperienced). Patient becomes very ill and had to receive dialysis. That patient could have died.

The deadly "mistake" that is most common in psychiatry is saying someone is safe and then that person commits suicide. The reason I have quotation marks is that it is very hard to predict. You use all the information you can, then make a defendable best guess.

ERCougar is really what I consider the worst of medicine. He sees the procedures in place to insure safety as nothing but impediments, and has the gall to suggest that the safety procedures kill people. I know enough about him now. Don't need to know anymore.
I would really love for you to set foot in the ER before you start commenting on "the worst of medicine". Example of how safety procedures kill people? I could give you dozens. But I too know enough about you from the morphine/magnesium example that I think my time would be wasted. You obviously don't know a rat's ass about what happens in the hospital.

But thanks for the comment. Are you a member of JCAHO?
ERCougar is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-15-2008, 05:38 AM   #28
ERCougar
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,589
ERCougar is on a distinguished road
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Archaea View Post
Mike and ER represent the spectrum in med mal.

The Medical Establishment takes the line that med mal almost never happens and that sufficient safeguards are in place to avoid all but the rarest of mistakes.

I would agree that if all physicians followed their training all of the time, very few mistakes would result in med mal harming a patient.

OTOH, with workloads and income expectations, mistakes occur in larger percentages than the medical establishment is wont to admit, yet not in the proportions the plaintiff's bar would have you believe.

ER arguing that nurses will alway catch the obvious mistakes is simply not true. With rushes, foreign nurses and the sometimes subservient attitude of nurses you can find nurses who won't question a doctor's orders. But plenty will question them and many mistakes are caught.

Mike is correct that hospitals especially and many physicians work immediately to cover up mistakes once something awful has happened. There are sincere, conscientious physicians who will self-examine upon a bad result, but the consequences of being too forthright are severe and militate against total honesty even with peer review protections in place.

It is a complex problem, but not aspect of the health care establishment encompasses enough of the issues for a universal review to be possible. In short, no matter who performs the study, it's likely to be slanted one way or another.
I probably did overstate in saying that all mistakes are either minor or caught before causing problems. But I am pointing out some of the objections to that study that cited the 100,000 number, and the objections to the methodology are valid.

I also never claimed that nurses catch all mistakes. They most certainly don't. But the morphine/magnesium example is a total farce and is most certainly made up. Also illustrates how inept JCAHO is by their continual citing of it as justification to their silly requests.

I also have to object to your characterizing hospitals and doctors' efforts to cover up their mistakes. There is a major push that has occurred recently towards acknowledging and apologizing to patients when errors are made. Studies have shown that legal costs go down when you follow this method; more and more hospitals have found it beneficial to do this. Malpractice reform efforts are also underway to protect hospitals and doctors from "admissions of guilt" during an effort at acknowledgement of an error--this should further improve the situation.

I'm all for improved systems in medicine to reduce error. It's worked in anesthesiology. The problem is that those who are in charge of the process have no clinical experience and institute requirements with serious costs and no proven benefit.

Last edited by ERCougar; 03-15-2008 at 05:46 AM.
ERCougar is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-15-2008, 05:40 AM   #29
MikeWaters
Demiurge
 
MikeWaters's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 36,363
MikeWaters is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

ER docs are known as the biggest assholes in medicine.

This has nothing to do with this thread, but I thought I would mention it.
MikeWaters is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-15-2008, 05:51 AM   #30
ERCougar
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,589
ERCougar is on a distinguished road
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeWaters View Post
ER docs are known as the biggest assholes in medicine.

This has nothing to do with this thread, but I thought I would mention it.
I still can't figure out if you're a doctor. To make that statement makes me think absolutely not. ER doc's bigger assholes than surgeons? Are you kidding me? I know there are exceptions and you can call me an asshole (indirectly) if you want, but let's take a poll of doctors and nurses and see what they think.
ERCougar is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 10:52 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.