Thursday, January 9, 2014

Science vs Religion? No...minorities mistrust physicians

LATimes mentions that the treatment of a "brain dead" girl is behind the family's refusal to stop treatment. But aside from sardonically saying the family wants a miracle, they don't bother to discuss religion.

But one has to wonder at the haste of the hospital to disconnect life support.

And how much is due to the family being black, and minorities (blacks, Hispanics, AmerIndians) suspect the medical profession isn't eager to treat them properly. Given the Tuskeegee study, or the Red Lake Strep study, where six cases of renal failure developed because they didn't bother to treat mild cases, I don't blame them. (The latter wasn't publicized, but I worked there).

And one has to wonder how brain death was diagnosed.

And one has to wonder if malpractice was behind the girl's death. I speak from experience: When I was in a famous Boston hospital for ", female surgery", I was disconnected too soon, and ended up with a cardiac arrhytmia from a low oxygen level...they raced to do an EKG  before they put me on oxygen.

When I had repeat surgery elsewhere, and woke up in pain, the nurse offered me a pain shot, which I refused saying I might stop breathing. (i.e. a repeat of the hypoxia episode of my first operation). She huffily said: That's what WE are here for, and promptly walked away to care for another patients, leaving me along for the next ten minutes...proving my case that if I had hypoventillated, she'd be elsewhere.

The understaffing of recovery rooms is a rarely mentioned problem behind this, and several other cases where families were pressured into stopping treatment.

And of course, there is the problem that lay people don't distinguish between severe brain damage, PVC, and brain death...and alas, sometimes doctors assume that if you might (might is the key word) end up with brain damage, you are better off dead.

This is all discussed in the C2C video I linked to yesterday.

one addendum: Wolfensburger has a lecture that showed a photo of a "brain dead" boy (on a respirator) enjoying a swim in his family's swimming pool, six months after he was called dead by the doctors.

No comments:

Post a Comment