Beyond the case itself, I'd hazard a sad guess that the only reason this made news is because the victim's father was a lawyer who wasn't forced to simply take the hospital president's platitude at face value (and who had the time, money, and energy to put his normal career on pause and enroll in a master's program just to investigate the issue). If that were my family, it would be "that's terrible" but no actual action, because my parents wouldn't be able to do anything about it, nor would I if something like this ever happened to my own future kids.
What action would you like? In this case everyone says it was likely a rare disease and not sepsis. Like, I'm sorry that this is and will be the reality of healthcare for the rest of our lives, if you have a rare thing pop up that can kill you in a matter of days you're going to need an absurd amount of luck for a doctor to notice.
> What action would you like? In this case everyone says it was likely a rare disease and not sepsis.
I'd like them to follow the legally required prompt instructing them to test for/treat as sepsis, rather than ignoring it but falsely asserting they followed it, so they can rule that out instead of guessing about what "likely" happened.
You can hand-wave all you want about how medicine is complicated, but a doctor checking a box for something they didn't do is objectively incorrect in my eyes, regardless of what "might have happened" had they done their job correctly. All of the discussion in this thread blaming the design of the checklist that the doctors didn't follow anyway is insane to me.
What I meant by "legally required prompt" was that others in the thread have tried to explain the "poor UX of the pop-up" by saying that it's probably required to display for legal reasons (whether directly, or to avoid liability). Regardless of that, checking an item off that you didn't perform is still logically incorrect whether it's illegal or not.
There are legions of medical malpractice lawyers who would hear out your case. Personal injury attorneys advertise every place possible and they will gladly refer you to the correct place. You wouldn’t get a NYT writeup but a settlement? Litigation is as American as apple pie
I was thinking similar-- a generic law firm could probably get a small payout, but wouldn't necessarily uncover as many details about the situation since they're not personally involved (and, as you said, would probably have less publicity as well).
I think your worries are misplaced. This is bread and butter for lawyers. The problem with this case is it’s very fuzzy. We are seeing one side of the story as a lawsuit is certainly coming. Doctors are human and deal with high stress, life or death situations. They have medical malpractice insurance exactly for this. Even if you have a 99.9% perfect doctor, they will see many thousands of patients over their career, and that still means 1/1000 will die. People play the lottery on far worse odds.
I found the article interesting less as a damning of the medical system and more of a spiritual situation. None of us know when a freak random event will end us. It is a sobering reality
> I found the article interesting less as a damning of the medical system and more of a spiritual situation. None of us know when a freak random event will end us. It is a sobering reality
Should we say the same about potentially life-threatening defects in our food supply? "Mistakes happen, so it's not about fixing or preventing them, it's about spiritually accepting that you might get a bad can of meat and die." Obviously not.
> that still means 1/1000 will die. People play the lottery on far worse odds.
I don't play the lottery, though. But I can't choose whether or not I might need emergency care one day. So comparing odds to the lottery isn't useful. Make the odds as good as possible.
