Efforts to locate cruise ship physicians involved in malpractice often fail:
Most ship doctors, despite typically wearing a crew uniform, are classified as independent contractors. And cruise companies contend they are no more liable for the doctors’ competence than a landlord who rents office space to a physician on land.
Related posts:
- Confessions of a cruise ship doctor
- Cruise lines not responsible for physician’s malpractice
- Managing physicians
- Medical office rents: A "career-ender"
- Do electronic medical records raise malpractice risk?
- Suing a cruise line for medical malpractice
- "Five dollars of every visit goes to malpractice"
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Many cruise lines hire contract physicians from countries where medical malpractice lawsuits are rare and difficult to pursue. American physicians are not generally preferred, as opposed to physicians from Europe. From those familiar with the lines, Greece is a favored country.
Another poorly written article by a clueless journalist.
re: retiree an over-the-counter pain reliever, but didn’t scan or X-ray her head despite continuing pain over the next several days, according to Mrs. Sullivan. After she got home, Mrs. Sullivan went to an emergency room, where a neurologist found a blood clot. Concerned it could cause a stroke, he performed invasive brain surgery
1: An X-ray of the brain would not find a blood clot. Just how many cruise ships have CT scanners with a rad tech hanging out (probably none)
2: A neurologist does not do brain surgery. That is called a neurosurgeon.
Ms Stephanie Chen (the author) is hard to take seriously with such flagrant and obvious errors in her article. Thye same goes for the moron who supposed to edit her article. Crap in crap out.
Perhaps Ms Chen’s excuse is she is not a doctor…’just a journalist”. But she feels it her obligation to trash the medical profession without correct facts she could be checking, if she were to abide by journalism ethics?
Who writes and trashes unethical and moronic writers?
I wondered about that, too. The cruise ship will have nothing on board to image the blood clot or hematoma.
I thought all these ships were registered in Liberia. Maybe the docs should be licensed there as well.
For medical acts done at sea, what would be the venue (if I’m using the right word) for the lawsuit? Assuming international waters or non-USA waters. The port of departure? Corporate HQ of the cruise line?
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