Doctors, death and deceit: Part 3

By now you will know I like to get on my high horse about this.

I've established that it is possible for you, as a patient, to wake up missing various parts and in a terrible state you do not want to live in. Whether or not this was with anyone's consent is irrelevant: nobody has the right to do this to you - it may be commonplace, but that does make it right or even legal. Remember that a doctor can be challenged, questioned and refused. You as a patient have RIGHTS. Oh yes, they might not like to hear it but it's true.

Doctors should always ask themselves 'If I were the patient, could I live with the likely outcome of this procedure?' If the answer is no, they don't do the operation. Simple. But of course they don't give a damn as to the state they leave anyone in, so long as they get in their golf game, a swift backhander, and the hospital a good place on the league tables. They should be forced to accept the concept of product stewardship (like a chemical company does)and hence the wellbeing (or not) of the patient once they have left hospital. Nobody should be allowed to be so callous, yet be so cosily protected by the hospital and in law (why can a patient not say and do what they damn well want to the uncaring nutter with the scalpel?).

It is rare that something relevant to all this appears in a TV drama (not those fake medical ones), but one in particular is stunning for its sheer profundity. In an episode of the first series of The Game of Thrones, Khal Drogo lays in a vegetative state following a wound infection, and his wide, the Khaleesi, is talking to the 'witch.' The witch (really a woman who has lost everything, including her livelihood and honour, to invaders) makes the comment that life is nothing without everything else that goes with it. It is very deep and very true. Anyone in the medical profession should take heed of it; people might respect them a bit more.

Jack Orchison, December 12, 2013.