[Toquay]

Eventually we will sue ourselves right out of healthcare providers, they are guilty if they are not thorough and apparently guilty (according to some) if they are. I truly have never seen a doctor ever do a rectal just for the fun of it.

Toq

[TiredMD]

Originally Posted by Toquay

I truly have never seen a doctor ever do a rectal just for the fun of it.

Not at work, anyway.

[Toquay]

TiredMD just perked up LOL.

Toq

[RN Power Ohio]

With our nation's finest research institutions verifying that greater than 98,000 patients a year are dying from failure to rescue and other medical errors it should be shocking that there are not more malpractice suits.
As patient advocates we need to support the rights of patients who are injured as a result of our failures. It is called responsibility and accountability. If more institutions accepted this responsibility there would be less suits.
Should a patient be forced into bankrupcy because they are permanently injured as a result of a medical error? Or should the people responsible for the injury accept the medical bills and offer some financial relief for these victims?
Time and time again hospitals set up an environment for disaster and yet do not accept responsibility. I have heard a hsopital excuse itself from the responsibility of a death using horrific staffing as a defense! A patient was discharged confused and with a BP of 70/30 after spinal surgery- he later died from ARDS. The hospital testified that it was impossible for the nurse to check vital signs because she had 13 patients! While I am sure she did not have time isn't there any duty by the hospital to staff safely? (The answer is no because there is no standard for nurse staffing except in the state of California)
Extensive malpractice costs driving up insurance rates and putting docs out of business is the biggest medical myth of our time! It is the insurance company driving up costs- not frivolous lawsuits!

The Medical Malpractice Myth:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/036480.html

Center for Justice and Democracy
Mythbuster
http://www.centerjd.org/private/myth...alpractice.htm

Justice For Patients:
http://www.justiceforpatients.org/

[earle58]

Originally Posted by Toquay

TiredMD just perked up LOL.

Toq

he's not the only one.
heh.

leslie

[58flyer]

Originally Posted by TiredMD

I take it y'all don't do Trauma.

In a level 1 center, patient come in upset, disoriented, bleeding, and in pain. They get an initial assessment by the surgeon, then they get rolled and "rectaled". They try to fight us off, and we hold them down. We rarely get hit because we usually already have ahold of their arms and legs before the exam. Nobody asks for permission to do the exam, and it is not required to have their permission (hence this stupid lawsuit getting tossed out of court).

They only get sent to jail if they were already wanted for something. Which is actually a pretty big proportion of patients in Trauma.

The moral of the story is, if you don't want me to do a rectal exam on you, don't get shot doing a drug deal or drunkenly crash your car.

If drug dealers and drunk drivers were the only ones who got rectal exams, it wouldn't concern me in the least.

But good people end up in trauma. Just to illustrate my point...( I hope y'all don't mind my stories, 'cause after 30 years in law enforcement, I got plenty...maybe I should write a book ); a sweet LOL got into a car crash and I was called to investigate. Could be anyone's grandmom. I can't talk to her much at the scene, so I head over to the Bold New City of the South ER to get enough info to finish up my crash report. I ask if I can talk to her, they say I can, I will not just walk into an ER bay without asking. I'm asking her the few simple questions to fill in the blocks in my crash report. All of the sudden one of the docs walks up with gloved hands and says to her, "Ms So and So, I just need to check your rectum to see if there is any blood in your belly" (yea, that ol' line) and then he and a nurse just roll the lady onto her side right in front of me as I stand right next to her in my police uniform and the doc sticks his finger up her butt. They didn't even draw the curtains. I would have been happy to step out for the lady's privacy if I had known what was coming.

I don't go around wishing bad things on people. I don't wish for any harm to anyone here. But since what goes around has a way of coming around, I do wish for this: that any medical person here, should they ever find themselves a patient, be treated the way they treat their patients, I think that's only fair.

[softstorms]

Alert/awake and oriented...... If I am there and need sutures in my head.........don't touch my butt to confirm your Dx.
We have scans for that. I just can't see a rectal exam confirming a spinal injury.

[RN Power Ohio]

Rectal exam is part of spinal eval. Neuro checks need to be thorough. Sometimes there is an injury that may not be completely evident just because the patient is awake and alert. If you read the posts from experienced trauma workers you will see that is true. Another fact from the article not discussed is the man awoke with a "breathing tube" well, he could not have been all that well if he ended up getting intubated.

So the question is not whether he needed a rectal exam but how it was done and if his rights and dignity were respected in the process.

[RN-Cardiac]

"I'm just wondering, but isn't the fact that the patient was WALKING a reason to not need the rectal exam? "

I have personally seen 2 pts in the last year walk to triage with a C2 Fx. I worked satruday night,..saw a C4 fx in one pt,.C7 in 2 pts,.all were A/Ox3,.MAE,.2 of them swore, kicked,.and tried to hit staff,..I was spit on and was pinched to the point of bruising X3,.but you know what,..I took care of every one of them,...I held tight when they were fighting with us,.I used the strength I had to keep them from furthur injuring themselves,...all befor the CT revealed the Fx!! Everyone of them recieved the dreaded rectal exam and after they were told they had a broken neck all three of them said "thank you for taking care of me". Granted my shifts aren't all like that,...everyone that fights and yells isn't always hurt,....but this is why we follow protocols!!!! This is why we have been trained to take care of trauma pts and why we have to treat everyone the same,..they are all broken until proven otherwise!!!

[58flyer]

Originally Posted by RN Power Ohio

So the question is not whether he needed a rectal exam but how it was done and if his rights and dignity were respected in the process.