miércoles, 19 de agosto de 2009

An Unhappy Medical Malpractice Journey, by David Gumpert

An Unhappy Medical Malpractice Journey, David Gumpert "The Complete Patient" (posted 9-1-2006),Veronica´s Glaubach killing

Last winter and spring, I chronicled the efforts of Roberto Glaubach to gain a measure of justice following the unexpected death of his daughter four years ago, just hours after giving birth in a Los Angeles-area hospital. Roberto argues that his daughter died because of the carelessness and negligence of doctors assigned to his daughter, and he petitioned California's Medical Board and others to charge the attending physicians.

Alas, Roberto has since run up against one roadblock after another in his efforts. Local newspapers have shied away from writing about the case, California legislators have been sympathetic but are delaying and, most recently, the California attorney general's office re-rejected his efforts to charge the doctors in the case, maintaining that it was up to the medical board to request the attorney general to file charges. The medical board's physician experts have all agreed that charges aren't warranted. (How often have you seen physicians criticize other physicians, let alone recommend legal charges against them?)

Roberto has concluded that the big problem lies is the language applied in medical malpractice issues, which gives the physicians a huge loophole, no matter how serious the transgression. Under the regulations, physicians who are guilty of a "single point of departure" (a minor error) in their treatment are pretty much excused; if their treatment reflects a "gross departure," then they can be prosecuted. But in reality, nearly all screwups are categorized as "single points of departure," so physicians can have lots of these, and still get off the hook.

As Roberto says, "It is more than clear that doctors (AMA) forced the introduction of that tricky terminology in the medical code, with a more than clear self indulgent intention to permit qualifying in that way any kind of failure. In my daughter's case,the board's expert report just blamed (one of the physicians) of having forgotten a simple urine analysis. Of course, not having diagnosed, and not having performed, any kind of treatement, said failure to perform a simple urine analysis was surely one more in the large list of preocedures and/or of tests avoided. Disconnecting the real facts is much too easy and provides almost 'a credit card' to avoid consequent responsibilities."

Gee, sounds like the doctors got together with the lawyers.

AuthorThe Complete Patient | Comment1 Comment | Share ArticleShare Article
in CategoryHealth care policy

Reader Comments (1)
Interesting Blog - I like your intelligent take on the sometimes emotional subject matter. Tried to send you an email to exchange links but could not figure out how to do that. So, check out mine (www.hospitalpatient.org) and we can exchange links.
September 7, 2006 | Unregistered CommenterMichael Weiss

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