[DarkTriad]

(08-19-2017 03:32 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

Nobody on this forum can know what the truth of the matter is.

First, only getting one side of the story.
Second, that side of the story does not have medical expertise. Can be inferred that the physician with years of training felt strongly the treatment was required for the safety, life and limbs of the girl.

After a 7 hours of declining to do anything, it can certainly be inferred that the medical personnel didn't believe it was serious or urgent.

[911]

Comrade SP5 is right. Parents just don't know what's best for their children, the state-appointed scientific authorities know better, after all they have the children's best interests in mind.

[Simeon_Strangelight]

In the UK they made those family courts secret for a good reason.
There were cases which came to light where the "commissar" let mothers carry a doll of a baby and force her to vacuum the staircase with one hand - if she dropped the doll, then her child would be taken away.

There is a huge history about those things - of how those Orwellian system was created to destroy the family structure ever more and take the children away from those pesky White hetero parents.

Even former CPS workers have told that maybe 1 in 50 or 1 in 100 cases was legitimate - all others were bogus.

[Cr33pin]

(08-19-2017 12:25 AM)puckerman Wrote:  

(08-19-2017 12:16 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

Everybody's a medical expert now, I guess.

The four years the emergency room MD spent in medical school, his internship and residency, and the $200k+ he paid in tuition was a total waste. Anyone can know better than him.

Yes, and the doctor needs all the unnecessary operations he can get so he can pay off all those debts.

[Thomas the Rhymer]

(08-20-2017 12:45 AM)DarkTriad Wrote:  

(08-19-2017 03:32 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

Nobody on this forum can know what the truth of the matter is.

First, only getting one side of the story.
Second, that side of the story does not have medical expertise. Can be inferred that the physician with years of training felt strongly the treatment was required for the safety, life and limbs of the girl.

After a 7 hours of declining to do anything, it can certainly be inferred that the medical personnel didn't believe it was serious or urgent.

Or it could be that there was a failure of the triage system, making the hospital panic even more at the potential lawsuit about to bury them.

Like I said, I don't know what the other side of the story is, but possibly this is a case of failed triage leading to delayed diagnosis of a serious emergency leading to a case of miscommunication leading to a potentially damaging lawsuit against the doctor/hospital leading to drastic countermeasures to nuke the parents so that any negligence will be on them instead of the hospital.

I think the problem is that in countries that have inherited the British legal system, there remains a vestige of the legal idea from the 1700's that the moment you seek a doctor, your body becomes the doctor's responsibility. Strictly speaking, your body no longer belongs to you, it belongs to your doctor. While most legal systems have added a degree of patient autonomy and choice, when it comes to children, the doctor is still seen as legally 'owning' a child's body as soon as parents consult with them, and therefore anything harmful that occurs to the child is the doctor's responsibility, technically, since the child becomes the doctor's child and not the parent's child as soon as medical attention is sought. (So for example, a doctor is negligent if he hands a child back to a parent who is known to physically abuse the child, for instance. This is because the doctor is now responsible for the child's wellbeing and can only hand the child back to a parent if there is reason to believe the child's wellbeing will not be compromised.)

I'm not sure of the nuances of the medical law in the area where the above circumstances occurred, but I'm guessing the parents did not properly give the doctor a chance to divest himself of his legal responsibilities. I suspect the parents may have just picked up the child and left without formally discharging themselves or referring themselves to another doctor, leaving the doctor in the ER still legally responsible for the child.

So I personally don't blame the doctor too much. I'd probably do the same thing. Why should I suffer a law suit if I can just turn the tables on the parents? Legally speaking, the doctor was still responsible for that child even though the parents took him home, and the doctor was still on the hook for a lawsuit even though the parents left.

But in general, the moment you seek a doctor's attention for your child, local laws may dramatically limit your parental rights, because by seeking a doctor's attention you imply that you are willing to give up certain rights as a parent and hand them over to a doctor.

That's not to say that what happened is ethically right or just, but a doctor operates within a legal framework and considerations of rightness or justice are secondary to the obligations of the law.

Disclaimer: this post is based on my understanding of my local laws, and may not be applicable to the actual case presented, depending on the laws applicable. This post is presented more as food for thought than anything else, take it for what it is.

[Pete]

(08-19-2017 12:16 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

Everybody's a medical expert now, I guess.

The four years the emergency room MD spent in medical school, his internship and residency, and the $200k+ he paid in tuition was a total waste. Anyone can know better than him.

since when is it wrong or bad to question the authority? Since when is it wrong to look for a second opinion?

Not all doctors agree 100% on diagnosis and none of them are 100% right every time.

By your logic, we should do whatever lawyers, MDs and PhD say we should do and shut up and never ever question them.

[Number one bummer]

(08-20-2017 11:05 AM)Pete Wrote:  

(08-19-2017 12:16 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

Everybody's a medical expert now, I guess.

The four years the emergency room MD spent in medical school, his internship and residency, and the $200k+ he paid in tuition was a total waste. Anyone can know better than him.

since when is it wrong or bad to question the authority? Since when is it wrong to look for a second opinion?

Not all doctors agree 100% on diagnosis and none of them are 100% right every time.

By your logic, we should do whatever lawyers, MDs and PhD say we should do and shut up and never ever question them.

That is why it is important to know more of the facts in the case. We really can only speak generally regarding how we feel about medical ethics. It is just as possible the activist dad told the doctor that he believed eastern medicine healing crystals were going to be his course of action prompting the doctor to act. I respect OP but I question the complete facts of the story.

I debated even posting in this thread because my opinion I carry is obviously not the popular one.

Thomas the Rhymer has had solid insight in this thread.

The idea that a child's health is completely beholden to the decision of the parent is a leftist idea, as is abortion and violent end of life treatments. Just take a college ethics course and you will find many leftist professors and students pushing for parents to have full autonomy on the medical decisions of children. Why? I only can figure since they justify abortion by removing a child's personhood it wouldn't logically follow for a child to have interests/rights outside that of the parents'.

Leftists are big fans on pulling the plug and treating those without autonomy very poorly. When you remove the idea that life is sacred it is easy for a secular utilitarian to justify "putting people down" that are deemed "too sick." A role of government is to protect the rights of individuals, this includes protecting children from the poor medical decisions of their parents. Do we need another thread highlighting some of the dumb things women(and some men) believe to be "science" in today's culture? We have women with children that believe in snake oil eastern medicine, crystals, and gender reassignments. There is a clear motive for the government to protect children from retarded parents. Parents that think because they have a feminist basket weaving degree, they know better than a doctor.

That being said one reason the government should not be heavily involved in dispensing healthcare is because it changes the role of government and the incentives. When the government is incentivized and supported by the left to run healthcare then the motive to protect the right's of others takes a backseat. This was seen in the UK case where baby Charlie was sentenced to death by a literal death panel. When you subscribe to secular utilitarianism and state run healthcare then death panels are a guaranteed outcome.

The role of CPS is a hard one, frankly society could do better if more R selected children had better parents. I have friend that works in one of the nations top NICUs. The stories of crack babies, fetal alcohol babies, heroin babies that stay with their birth mother is disgusting.

I understand the frustration with government entities especially when highlighted with antidotal cases of seemingly gross overreach. However I think there is a healthy balance we can find as long as the country has certain values. The values that life is sacred should be a strong determinate in medical decisions. I personally only know one parent that lost her kid, and that's because she got prison time for being a get away driver for a double murder and the "baby daddy" was one of the gunmen. Professionally, I could go over hundreds of cases I've personally seen where abusive, negligent and unfit parents still have their children. I had a case where a father got nailed for drunk driving with his wife and three kids in the car(between 4-8 years old). He tested a .380 and his wife was a .175 BAC, the kids were released to grandparents and CPS did nothing with case.

You have to be a very bad parent to lose your kids in a meaningful way in the US. Most anti-CPS cases don't involve children being ripped away from parents but usually soccer moms being triggered by a routine follow-up.

I guess my point is, I'd rather have values that say life is sacred and that children will be protected than let parents have free reign. I don't know, I'm probably in the jaded category when it comes to most things.

[puckerman]

(08-19-2017 11:42 AM)Thomas the Rhymer Wrote:  

The doctor was probably just protecting his butt. The family would have been able to sue him for medical negligence once their daughter's hand rotted off or if she developed further complications. They could easily have argued that the doctor had a legal/ethical right to compel the parents to return the child to hospital, and they would have been right.

The doctor probably took the course of action that put him at the least risk of a career-destroying law suit. No one wants to be known as the doctor that allowed a kid with a septic hand to go home, with her ending up permanently disabled or dying due to a combination of sepsis/renal problems.

I definitely think this is a big part of it. Medical professionals live in a paranoid world where they are doing whatever they can to "cover their asses." There is a lot of "defensive medicine," and it's a big reason why health care costs so much.

There is something else I should have mentioned initially though. I don't think the mother had much confidence in the doctor. She might very well have allowed another doctor to do the work, but she didn't like this one.

Mechanics in the past have told me that I needed car work done. But I didn't have confidence in them and ended up getting the work done elsewhere. I suspect it's the same with doctors and dentists.

I remember when I was going to an orthodontist as a teenager. My mother complained constantly about how much she hated the receptionist at the office. It often turns out that these motherly instincts are correct.