30 October 2011
Hospitals Protect Themselves
My recent experience in two hospitals compels me to note that medical institutions and their staffs have become hostage to the threat of lawsuits accusing them of endangering the welfare of their patients. It’s a no-win position that they have been put in, of course. However, the treatment of sick persons admitted for medical care must answer to at least four authorities: the professional hospital staff, the patient himself, regulators and, after the fact, legal claimants.
This potential conflict of concerns often results in the patient’s wishes being given the lowest priority, although he Is naturally the foremost authority on treatment of prior or ancillary conditions which may not have anything to do with the reason for his admission into the hospital. On the other hand, the patient may be mistaken with regard to some of the therapies he used before coming to the hospital. In my case, both situations were true. Whereas it took long arguments and demands that a physician allow an exception to the staff pharmacist’s rote prescription in order to be allowed to continue taking an anticonvulsive medicine at the dosage I had learned works for me, it was only after several weeks in the hospital and consultation with the in-house doctor that we concluded that the originally prescribed dosage of another medicine may likely have led to the fall that resulted in the injury that put me in the hospital at all.
Of course, lying in a hospital bed all day leads one to exaggerate issues like these. Nevertheless, it doesn’t pay to accept the role of the meek patient. I understand the hospital nurses who defended the institution’s rules on adhering to standard dosages when I objected to their original administration of the anticonvulsive drug and admire their assiduity in finding the physicians with whom to consult when I repeatedly insisted on making an exception to those rules.
My recent experience in two hospitals compels me to note that medical institutions and their staffs have become hostage to the threat of lawsuits accusing them of endangering the welfare of their patients. It’s a no-win position that they have been put in, of course. However, the treatment of sick persons admitted for medical care must answer to at least four authorities: the professional hospital staff, the patient himself, regulators and, after the fact, legal claimants.
This potential conflict of concerns often results in the patient’s wishes being given the lowest priority, although he Is naturally the foremost authority on treatment of prior or ancillary conditions which may not have anything to do with the reason for his admission into the hospital. On the other hand, the patient may be mistaken with regard to some of the therapies he used before coming to the hospital. In my case, both situations were true. Whereas it took long arguments and demands that a physician allow an exception to the staff pharmacist’s rote prescription in order to be allowed to continue taking an anticonvulsive medicine at the dosage I had learned works for me, it was only after several weeks in the hospital and consultation with the in-house doctor that we concluded that the originally prescribed dosage of another medicine may likely have led to the fall that resulted in the injury that put me in the hospital at all.
Of course, lying in a hospital bed all day leads one to exaggerate issues like these. Nevertheless, it doesn’t pay to accept the role of the meek patient. I understand the hospital nurses who defended the institution’s rules on adhering to standard dosages when I objected to their original administration of the anticonvulsive drug and admire their assiduity in finding the physicians with whom to consult when I repeatedly insisted on making an exception to those rules.
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