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Sat Jul 21 23:27:00 BST 2007

Easy to throw stones when it isn't your greenhouse, isn't it? 

> *From:* "Pret Bjorn" <p.bjorn at netzero.net>
> *To:* "'Trauma &amp; Critical Care mailing list'" 
> <trauma-list at trauma.org>
> *Date:* Sat, 21 Jul 2007 09:35:18 -0400
> 
> I disagree.  
> 
> First, when somebody is suffering or endangered, it's utterly 
> shameful for a
> trained healer to shelter himself behind "it's not my job."  Such 
> just
> further encourages the unconscionable crap illustrated in Dr. 
> Mattox's
> scenario. 
> 
> Furthermore, the practice of emergency medicine is not confined to 
> a disease
> set; often, and "emergency" arises when a routine health issue is
> complicated by non-routine circumstances -- like labor and delivery 
> in a
> mentally ill woman with no social support.  
> 
> Honestly, I think that an EM clinician (given the opportunity -- 
> not clear
> in Ken's story) would have been uniquely able cut through all the 
> nonsense
> of this case.  The obstetrician, the anesthesiologist, and the 
> surgeon(?)
> were clearly out of their environment and distracted by issues that
> emergency docs have long since learned to handle.  
> 
> >From the available evidence, I'd suggest that this woman's real 
> problems had
> nothing to do with her pregnancy or her mental illness or her 
> grandmother.
> It's disturbingly easy to assume that those were all convenient 
> excuses.
> She made the mistake of going to a hospital where nobody cared.
> 
> Pret
> 
> 

BFM

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