Medical Mal-Behavior
My mind was violentlyly shook this morning at hearing about this medical mal-
behavior from an insider. The party of the patient's has won the lawsuit, and the nature of this medical behavior has been defined as medical misplay. But to a
family mourning over the loss of life of a dear family member, especially a loss
that could have been avoided, can the 550,000 yuan compensation make up? I strongly doubt it.
The patient was taken into the inward of hospital A for some infection in the
nasal cavity. On the very first day of being an inward, his doctor had decided
to give him an operation.(Mind you, except for emmergency cases, operation should not be done untill all the results of lab examination have been returned. And
a meeting among relevant departments should be necessary for a complex case. But
sadly enough, these were not at all the case for this miserable patient who had
suffered the biggest loss, a loss of life.) We, or any trained medical staffs should have our hearts hung on a thread at hearing this. What makes things even worse, this was the very first operation of this kind in this so-called top-leveled hospital!
The relatives with trust on the hospital, lacking any necessary medical knowledge, of cousr signed their names to show agreement on this too-hastily decided
operation.
The operation did not go smoothly even at the very first of its beginning. Not having met the demanding request of the anatomy, the surgeon broke into the spinal dura mater and had the cerebrospinal fluid flew out as a result. They hurried to mend it, and got one of the tissue in the operated area as sample and sent it to the sample-reading department. That department, reading the sample pprepared by this surgeon, published the result as a malignant tumor. The surgeon then got backed up, and cut out much of the neighbouring tissues in order to "prevent the possible spreading of the cancer cells".
The patient was sent back to his ward. As post-measures of the operation, his
doctor had given him hormone-natured drugs to lower his temperature (which, I have to reveal, is a very unusual practice because this measure can hide the rising of body temperature as a sign for infection by merely concealing the truth).
At leaving the hospital, the patient's blood routine test still have obvious sign of having an infection.
Several days later, the patient was brought back to the hospital by his family for he had something running out of his nose. They were told this was no more
than some so-called infection by a common cold. "Nothing is serious", they were
told.
But the situation in the patient kept on deteriorating, and to another hospital he was sent. Along with him, the sample took during his operation was taken.
The re-reading and re-examing of that sample revealed a terrific truth: this
was taken from normal brain.
"Taken from normal brain", these few word lit up a fire in the suffering patient's relatives.
Soon the patient was sent to the best hospital in the province, and the most
effective measures were taken to prevent the endo-cerebral infection. Yet the already- weak patient was not able to survive.
He died soon after.
The case has been highlightened by local court, and the result was unmistakenable: medical misplay.
The surgeon had taken damaged the bone stucture of the skull from inside, and
taken the wrong part of the brain (the normal part of it) as a sample. And this
sample had provided wrong information about the ailment. What should be normal
cells in brain tissue is actually abnormal and even malignant one outside of it
. And the surgeon got backboned to go on with his operation with the misleading
report to cut more of the brain from the patient. After the operation , to conceal the truth, they gave him hormone-kind of drugs to hide the rising body temperature. Even at his return to the hospital for an re-examination, the doctor fooled him. (As a surgeon of a top-leveled hospital, it was his responsibility to have known better). However facts speaks by itself, and the secret can never be hidden for good. He was published. His hospital was fined. The reputation of that
hospital was greatly influenced. But the loss of life is not to be made up.
Being an insider, my heart has been mourning over this. Despite all the profits, can the surgeon's conscience rest at peace in this case, knowing from the start that he was acting against the accepted routine of medical practice?
