On days that I am unable to blog, I will be linking to some classic posts – either something I find interesting, or heavily commented topics.
September 2004 – Discussion on John Ritter’s aortic dissection:
I can only sympathize with the emergency room that night. With an acute aortic dissection, seconds count, and it was an unfortunate event for all concerned. Was it malpractice? Tough to say. The question I’d be interested in would be how long it took for the ER to order that chest CT scan.
Related posts:
- John Ritter and the $67 million malpractice trial
- My take: Incentives, hospitalists, probabilities
- John Edwards calls reducing medical malpractice lawsuits a "good idea"
- My take: Henschke, insolvency, MIs, specificity
- John Ritter defendants: "They just lost less"
- Classic post: Cut Medicare payments for doctors, you’ll have fewer doctors
- Sciatica: Why does it have to be this hard?
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{ 3 comments }
I don’t have the specifics of the case, i.e. what kind of Aortic Dissection was it? Type I, Type II, etc…
What would’ve predispose Ritter to having a dissection? Hypertension!! He certainly was not Marfanoid in appearance and certainly didn’t have the Trisomy features and thus the most logical, and incidentally the #1, cause of a dissection is UNCONTROLLED HYPERTENSION. Perhaps undiagnosed hypertension? But more likely methinks the scenario is that Jack Tripper had been noncompliant with antihypertensive medication. He was overweight so I’m sure he has longstanding known high blood pressure. My point is that if you know you have longstanding hypertension and are noncompliant with medication and you die of an aortic dissection, whose flippin’ fault ultimately is that??
Furthermore certain types of aortic dissection are treated nonoperable and treated medically with, guess what, ANTIHYPERTENSIVE MEDICATIONS! What type of dissection did Jack Tripper have? Ascending? Descending? If he has the inoperable type then is there really grounds for a legitimate suit? Sure there was a misdiagnosis but even if it was diagnosed, would the outcome have been different? Maybe he gets to live an extra couple of months but that thing was going to blow anyway.
Excuses…excuses… If the providers could not make a correct diagnosis (what they are purportedly trained to do) then their purpose is?!?
“Excuses…excuses… If the providers could not make a correct diagnosis (what they are purportedly trained to do) then their purpose is?!?”
Oh, I dunno, maybe to evaluate and treat the things they do diagnose? To make a reasonable effort to assess patient complaints and provide a plan of care they hope the patient is willing to follow, like, for instance, take anti-hypertensive medications.
By your reasoning, we should find the T.V. weatherman responsible for ruining your garden party. After all, you paid your cable bill.
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