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Guardrail of paper on the road to medical disaster
Imagine waking up after amputation surgery, groggy and disoriented, only to discover that the foot you're supposed to have is gone, and the one that's supposed to be gone is still attached...
Or that you've got some extra ventilation in the head because your genius of a brain surgeon first drilled a hole in the right side of your skull to relieve a pressure buildup in the left-hand side...
Or maybe that they removed the wrong kidney - or gave you a heart catheterization meant for another patient!
These are just a few true examples of the kind of botchery that goes on every day in this country. It's the medical community's dirty little secret. I've written about this kind of thing before. Last winter I told you how surgical errors (along with misdiagnoses, mis-prescribed medications and other medical blunders) add up to the third leading cause of death in this supposedly advanced nation of ours.
So what can we do, beside pray it doesn't happen to us or anyone we love? We can legislate! That's right, in a rare and bold move to protect you and yours from medical incompetence, the Fools on the Hill in good ol' Washington, D.C. have decreed that before operating, surgeons must...
COMPLETE A CHECKLIST!
That's right: Before scalpel touches skin, docs, nurses, and patients alike (if conscious and coherent, that is) are now required to double-check all the salient facts involved: The surgery site, the position on the body, the organ or appendage to be repaired or removed, etc. In other words, as of July 1 of this year, surgeons are required by law to operate correctly.
Whew, that's a relief, right?
But this new legislation begs the question: What safety measures were in place before this landmark date in the history of malpractice, er medicine? I mean, pilots can't take to the air without a going through a pre-flight checklist a mile long - that's one reason air travel is the safest form of transportation. So why have doctors been able to CUT US OPEN without similar safeguards in place?
Undoubtedly, because adding a time-consuming step like this adds to the expense of medical treatment. And we all know what medicine is nowadays: A business - and you're the bottom line.
If only the establishment were in the "business" of healing instead of raking in the dough, maybe the country's list of top killers would be made up of actual diseases instead of their supposed cures.
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OUTRAGE!
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I, Robot doctor
In the past, I've given my tentative support to new technologies I believe will help to make life and health easier and more complete for people - like the wall-clinging around-the-house robot helper I wrote about before (Daily Dose, 5/4/2004) that's designed to aid the elderly and disabled in completing any number of day-to-day household tasks.
But apparently, there's a kind of "Robot Doctor" on the horizon - and preliminary feedback from patients and hospital staff is all thumbs up!
According to a recent MSNBC report, there are currently 15 of the fully mobile 5-foot, 200-pound units currently making the rounds in selected hospitals and nursing homes across the country. Featuring a video screen for a "face" and a camera and microphone for its eyes and ears, these robo-docs enable patients to converse face-to-face (sort-of) with their own personal physician - whether he (or she) is in another wing of the hospital or another part of the world. Basically, these rolling residents enable doctors to keep in regular contact with their patients without having to leave their current post.
Research recently conducted at Johns Hopkins University (the home of what is perhaps the world's premiere medical school) indicated patients prefer this electronic "android" with a familiar face over a flesh-and-blood attendant doctor they didn't know at all.
And I'd call anything that makes for more frequent personal contact between doctors and patients - and anything that increases doctors' chances of REALLY LISTENING to their patients a good thing...
Even if it sounds like something out of an Isaac Asimov novel.
Always measuring my words before cutting them loose,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
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