Baumgartner - Dr. Mark Morehart: State of Washington Appeal Court - aborted use of cell saver machine

by darkspilver 42 Replies latest watchtower medical

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  OrphanCrow

  ILoveTTAT: "A Jehovah’s Witness who receives a blood transfusion in violation of this belief will be excommunicated from the church and will not go to heaven."
  FFS... why doesn't anyone ever report accurately on JW's?

  
  

  This is something that so many JWs (and exJWs) love to pounce on - the inability of outsiders to stay on top of, or to learn, the weirdness of the Jehovah's Witness doctrine.

  My reaction to this is...why tf should they have to get all the f***ing stupid details of JW theology correct? The JW theology concerning heaven is such a minor point - the only ones who have difficulty with this are the ones who have the need to see the JW religion as unique

  This article is written for the public - the public doesn't care if "heaven" is the promise the cult gives their members or if "eternal life on earth" is the promise that is held out as the carrot.

  Getting 'heaven' mixed up with 'life forever on earth' is a detail that is apparent only to those who think it matters. It doesn't.

  
  

  
  
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  darkspilver

  My reaction to this is...why tf should they have to get all the f***ing stupid details of JW theology correct?

  Because they're being paid. If you being paid to do a job, you have a responsibility to fulfil that job, even if you think it is stupid, or if unable to, then to stand down.

  If they're unwilling to, as you say, 'keep-up', then they should NOT accept the job in the first place.
  

  This was NOT an emergency, it was planned, cold surgery.

  So much for CPD!!!
  

  This article is written for the public

  I presumed it was the official court record, I got to it through the official Washington Court Website- it's not a newspaper article written by a journalist, it is a court document.
  
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  OrphanCrow

  I presumed it was the official court record, I got to it through the official Washington Court Website- it's not a newspaper article written by a journalist, it is a court document.

  Okay. Public court document.

  Focusing on a moot point like 'heaven' is a red herring

  Just because the JWs will get their shirt in a knot over a doctrinal point doesn't mean it is important in the context it was presented
  
  
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  JeffT

  There is a legal concept "De Minimis"

  from free Dictionary: An abbreviated form of the Latin Maxim de minimis non curat lex, "the law cares not for small things." A legal doctrine by which a court refuses to consider trifling matters.

  The law doesn't care if JW's believe they're going to heaven, paradise on earth, or Disneyland. It's irrelevant to the case. So is discussion of how the machine came to be contaminated. Legally and medically, the root cause of this incident is the refusal of JW's to accept medically necessary blood transfusions. Absent that issue, this medically procedure would have, in all probability, ended better than it did. That is the issue before the court.
  
  
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  Spoletta

  What if the patient dies due to blood contamination from the dropped suction tube. Would the family bring a malpractice suit for negligence?
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  Lee Elder

  Hard to fault the doctors for trying to understand all of the little complexities of Watchtower policy, as well as the different ways it can be interpreted. I can give you examples of the policy that don't require blood outside of the body to be kept in motion, as long as the time while its out of the body is momentary (you define momentary). They are being asked to do the impossible, and then faulted when it can't be done.
  
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  GrreatTeacher

  The document is not really clear about the way the word "contaminated" was used.

  Was it in the sense of biological pathogen contamination, or religious contamination because of the loss of continuous blood flow?
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  Richard Oliver

  JeffT:

  You are correct the court doesn't care about the little things. But nowhere in this case does this issue come up. The court ruled no standard of care by a reasonable medical professional was violated. The questions that the court answered was, did the doctor violate that standard on two different basis. The court ruled that because the doctor was behind the rest of the surgical staff that he could not reasonable overrule the announcement of the operator when the operator said that the machine was contaminated. The second was that the plaintiff's expert could not prove that a reasonable physician would order a cell salvage machine on standby based on this type of surgery. The court ruled that based on the standard of practice for a laparoscopic surgery such as this, that the device would only be needed if the field of view was obstructed so much that it required the installation of the machine.
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  Vidiot

  ILoveTATT2 - "...why doesn't anyone ever report accurately on JWs (theology)?"

  Well, let's be honest.

  It does change pretty often... :smirk:
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  Fisherman

  
  

  Without reading what was agreed to and signed off on before the surgery, it is hard to say if defendants are liable. But the hospital has a responsibility to make sure that the instruments they use do not fail. Should a surgeon drop a scalpel on the floor, he needs to be prepared for that contingency. Suppose the machine that pumps gases through the tracheal tube fails, should the surgeon proceed without oxygen or anesthesia and finish the surgery the best he can? Baloney! The hospital agreed to perform surgery on JW using a machine that was essential to keep the patient alive; the machine failed and the JW patient died because their machine essential to the life of the patient failed. The hospital is liable. But if the JW patient signed something releasing the hospital prior to the surgery, that agreement has to be considered. But whether a patient is JW or otherwise or is a allergic to blood or something else or needs some special machine for his condition or just the regular machine they use on everybody or any paraphernalia needed to keep the patient alive -the hospital is liable to make sure nothing fails. It ain't an excuse to say "too bad the medicine that we had for the patient fell on the floor and broke, it is his fault, he is allergic to regular medicine,cause that's all we have, so we will just have to do our best and if he dies, it is his fault because we agreed to use special medicine and we don't have any more and it is his fault he does not want regular standard, medicine."

  The JW patient died because the machine used, essential to his life, failed.