Comments on: A GYN nurse misses Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:41:00 +0000

” wonder why this would be so “chilling” when one could simply buy insurance to cover this sort of thing”

Do you spend 1/3rd of your income on car insurance (I know quite a lot OBGYs for malpractice). My dear ,hardly you would ever drive a car.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 05:26:00 +0000

I wonder why this would be so "chilling" when one could simply buy insurance to cover this sort of thing. Do doctors avoid driving if they read about a car wreck that resulted in someone being rendered paraplegic and getting a multimillion dollar verdict? Must not be, the parking lots for physicians are usually full with massive SUVs, which are even more likely to cause significant harm to the person on the other end of the wreck.

What are the "life's expenses" that are deducted from the savings figure?

Sounds like yet another whiny doctor wanting immunity from the harm they cause.

By: JC

JC — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 05:01:00 +0000

I do wonder, as one commenter in the link said, why she went to an OB/GYN and why the OB/GYN didn’t pass the case along/call someone for advice.

By: Okulus

Okulus — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 04:25:00 +0000

The story is very brief, but what is said hardly seems enough to support a verdict like this. RMSF does not result from every tick bite, even those with fever and rashes that follow. Serologic testing takes quite awhile, longer than the three days from office presentation to ER visit that the article relates. And in the absence of an ongoing rash, something in evidence at the time of the office visit, it would be even less likely a diagnosis. The patient related flu-like symptoms, which are extremely common. The outcome is tragic, but given the fulminant events, organ failure, probable generalized DIC picture with necrosis of extremities, it is really debatable whether standard treatment for RMSF would necessarily have affected the outcome. For those who think immediate referral would have been better, wonder to whom. I doubt an infectious diseases specialist would be all that impressed by the history to have ordered immediate admission.

It would be interesting to know whether this award stands. If it does, it creates a very strong incentive to test heavily and early and refer even the most trivial problems.

By: Criminallopath

Criminallopath — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:04:00 +0000

The self-importance of point (3) is rather galling. There should be zero mistakes by anyone and everyone involved with such a self-important fellow solely as a result of basking in his divine glow.