Yesterday, I went over to the hospital for an injection of cortisone into my right shoulder joint. This was set up after I saw the orthopedist a week before and found that I had degenerative arthritis (known as gray hair of the skeletal system) in both shoulders. He knew that I was a physician, and we talked about the procedure a bit.
So, I show up and go to the ER where a c-arm fluroscope is set up. The doc shows up, preps my shoulder, and under fluroscopic control places a needle into the joint and delivers the medicine. I am out of there is 5 minutes and go home.
So? Well, at no time was I asked to sign any consent or hear a litany of horrors as to what might happen to me. If I had being doing the same procedure in the USA, I would have had forms signed by the patient saying that they understood the possibilities of infection, paralysis, and death. Even with all that, there would still be a lawyer willing to sue because he would know that the insurance company would settle. If I refused to settle, then the company would have dropped me the next year.
Just not quite as litigious over here. A doc can get into trouble, but he has to be almost criminal in his actions. In medical school, a lawyer taught us jurisprudence. The idea was that docs are humans, and humans make mistakes. You would never be sued for a mistake. Nowadays, if a doc takes on a patient, there is an implied contract that the doc will make the patient well.
That's a bunch of horse feathers!
2 comments:
Really like reading your blogs. Regarding your shoulder, my hubby worked for 25 years in cold refrigeration, so of course, he developed really terrible painsduring the night in his shoulders. Could not get him to see a dr., as his reply, there's noghing hat can be done. anyway, as time went on, the pain became worse, said it felt like a knife in his shoulder. Sometime down the road, he read an article, didn;t think too much about it, then it popped up again. So he thought, what have I got to lose. You take a bottle of gin, any cheap brand will do, a box of golden raisins, cannot use the dark ones, cover the raisins with the gin, let it sit for a couple of days in the refrigerator, then every night take one-two spoons just before bed, and what do you know - his pain has gone. In the summer, he doesn't seem to need this, but come winter, and the pain starts again, so he starts his raisin mixture again. Just thought I would pass it alone, and actually, it tases petty darn good.
Regards, Andrea
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