According to Michelle Roberts' article "Pregnancy rhesus disease errors too common", some mothers with rhesus-negative blood type are denied an injection to protect their unborn babies with rhesus-positive blood, so the mothers' immune system can attack their babies. Every pregnant woman should be screened ,and the injection should be given immediately to avoid the disease, but it is not given due to carelessness of doctors or nurses.
As I am going to be a medical student next year, I have read few things about medical ethics- a framework of doctors. One important principle in medical ethics is trustfulness, which has become more and more important since Tuskegee syphilis experiment, which was an experiment, conducted in the U.S. Public Health Service, with a purpose of studying progression of syphilis in black men who thought they were given free health care from the government. It was a disgusting thing that some doctors used people's trust in a terrible way, with no care of medical ethics.
In Thailand, I have never read such serious story, but less serious stories are commonly reported on the newspaper as well, for example, last year there was a story about the woman whom the doctor injected some botox into her nose, unfortunately, the botox was contaminated in her circulation system and she then lost her consciousness forever. It is true that today more and more reports are about medical prosecution. Therefore, people are starting to lose their trust on doctors.
Doctors today should strictly follow medical ethics, any mistake in their work is the worst mistake ever, because it can bring death to one person's life. To be a doctor is not easy, you have to give out many things including your personal time, you even have a risk of being prosecuted. However, you also give people their longer lives, the greatest thing one would ever expected in his life. Maybe it is worth for all the things you lost, for me, I think it is worth.
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Reference
Roberts, M. (2013, March 13). Pregnancy rhesus disease errors too common. BBC News Health.
Retrieved March 13, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21752761
How trusting of doctors should their customers be?
ReplyDeleteI think that for the technical areas, we should trust doctors, who, as Ming reminds us, are far more expert on medical issues than we are likely to be. However, I'm not sure that we should be too trusting of them in other areas.
For example, when I visit a doctor at Bangkok Christian Hospital, which is near my home, and which I think is quite good for most things, I am happy to rely on the doctor to tell me what might be the problem and what courses of action are available, but I sometimes have to disagree with them about the medicines they prescribe. In fact, I usually tell them to cut things out of the prescription. They typically prescribe pain killers and often sleeping pills which I don't want; more to the the point, I don't need them and they could be dangerous. This worries me, and I think such behaviour is both unprofessional and unethical (I do refrain from saying this directly). If a patient took needlessly prescribed pain killers or sleeping pills and suffered a complication as a result, I think the patient should take legal action against the doctor for malpractice.
So although we should, and must, rely on the doctors superior medical knowledge, we should not blindly trust them, but critically assess what they are saying and advising, and if we disagree, tell them or ask for explanations and reasons. The patients are, after all, paying for the doctor's service just as they do for a lawyer, a cook, an engineer and a cleaner. We might trust the chef to prepare a meal much better than we can, but not to place our order for us.
Ming's thoughtful post also made me think of a more serious social and political problem that comes from excessive trust in doctors, but I'll wait to see what others think.
DeleteI agree with the point that doctors' prescriptions are sometimes unacceptable. Additionally, some doctors of public health centers in rural areas prescribe low grade medicines, from my own experience, I was prescribed artificial tears instead of germicide, when I had a conjunctivitis during a social developed camp at Prachinburi.
DeleteAbout medical ethics, there are many undecidable cases, as you know, the most sensitive one is euthanasia. For a painful patient, he/she may wish to peacefully pass away, but his/her relatives may do not want you to do that. If you were a doctor, what would you do?
On the euthanasia question, see question 5 on the list of essay topics. But is my question there exactly the same as Ming's question here?
DeleteMing's thoughtful post is a medical issue right now since many medical errors happen and those doctors have been sue for compensation so seems no one want to be a doctors because of afriad of prosecution.I used to work in nursing field for many years so I think I know these doctors feeling, of course they do their best anytime but it could not prevent some complication due to patients' condition (themselve). However,medical council always meeting and looking for the ways to prevent this problem as well. Morever, in Thailand we have the cusumer protect organization,belong to the government, to pay any compensation to the victim of medical errors. I do agree with Peter too,I think in private hospital they sometime give the medicine which we do not want cause of they can charge you more. I do not neccessary at all so checked with them any time is a good solution.
ReplyDeleteI used to read some topics in a newspaper which related to the patients' trust and physicians before. In my opinion, if doctors tell us about what disease is found in our bodies or what problems we have, we always believe 100% and have no arguments. It means that doctors must diagnose precisely and tell everything to the patients, although it may affect the patient's morale. Moreover, patients should follow all instructions from doctors too.
ReplyDeleteI also heard some diagnoses that some doctors prescribe some medicines which only alleviate the symptom, but these medicines cannot treat diseases. Patients must go to see the doctors frequently and pay a lot of money to remedy. I think it is inappropriate to do that.
I do agree with Ming that to be a doctor is not easy. Not only they study very hard when they were medical students ,but they also work bloody hard when they become real doctors,non-stop for many hours a day. This job is really tough and stressful. However, in Thailand, Doctors earn the highest average salary and get respect from people in society too. That's why a lot of A-grade students what to be doctors and they do achieve it since they can pass the entrance exam. Nevertheless, I don't think that every genius student are going to be a good doctor because the most important qualification of doctor is not intelligence but sympathy. So, Why don't they have an attitude test for qualification of good doctors?
ReplyDeleteI think that as the patients become more educated than before, they do not easily trust the diagnosis of the doctors. My father is one of such an example, but only for the serious cases. He always consults at least three doctors and seeks for the agreed diagnosis before he receives the medical treatment.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Ming and Bar that being a doctor is a hard work and being such a good doctor is much more harder. Ming's thoughtful post also made me think of the headline on the newspaper that a doctor has left their tool inside the patient's stomach during the operation. After that, patient has a stomachache, so the x-ray result reveals that there is a tool inside his stomach. This is an unforgivable error due to the carelessness of the doctor.
ReplyDeleteWhilst certainly unfortunate, I could more easily forgive a doctor for this kind of mistake than for something like deliberately or recklessly failing to follow best practices, such as prescribing unnecessary drugs.
DeleteAs Ming's title reminds us, however careful and however well-intentioned, human beings do make mistakes.