Is it malpractice?
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{ 6 comments }
Sometimes it is neither negligence or malpractice; things can be nothing more than plain bad luck.
We had an unfortunate group of organ recipients for whom the donor, an apparently healthy 17 year old with a brain aneurysm just happened to have disseminated metastatic melanoma. Who goes looking for a second unrelated terminal illness in a 17 year old donor?
Three patients unfortunately received organs and the problem was noted when their transplant docs compared notes on the lunch room. Examination of the donor’s body failed to reveal a primary skin site, but micrometastases were in every tissue of his body.
I agree, sometimes this is just the way the dice falls.
However, reading the linked article, it appears the patient and family *were not told* after a biopsy revealed lesions on the transplanted kidney. Withholding information from people is never a good idea.
In fact, someone might even try and hold you responsible when you withhold that information from them. Shocking that anyone would hold a physician responsible, no?
I think physicians should be held responsible for cancer. Whenever anyone has cancer, one should look for the last physician who touched him and prophylactically sue that person because they should have done something to discover it early.
Same with heart disease and stroke.
b
(this is a sarcastic reply to the above snarky poster)
Except that poster didn’t say that. But good reply to the strawman! You really smoked him!
this blog has become the physician’s comedy club! Once upon a time, when I first started reading here, I worried over some of the silly comments you doctors made, wondering if you really represented a fair percentage of real doctors. Now that I totally get it, that you are the radicals of the profession, I can smile and brush off what you say keeping it in the context of entertainment.
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