Life is a crap shoot, especially the end of it
Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center in Boston has stirred up some controversy in hospital circles by posting the hospital’s “central line infection rates.” He writes in a followup post that some of his colleagues are somewhat displeased with with his announcing the data publicly. In defending his decision, Mr Levy writes:
But I believe that the more important issue for all of us running hospitals, and especially academic medical centers, is that our standing as institutions in American society is in jeopardy.
A couple of years ago I participated in a mock-jury that weighed a malpractice lawsuit involving a delivery or somesuch that had gone bad. The operation was successful, the patient died. Something like that. I argued against finding against the doctor/hospital on the ground that one reasonably can’t expect to survive a trip to the hospital. No matter how well-trained, well-rested, well-paid, well-procedured, and well-what-not a doctor is, or a hospital staff is, things are going to go wrong and patients are going to die.
Granted, I was the only one in the mock-jury who felt that way. All the other mock-jurors were about ready to hand over half of New England to the plaintiff. Still, I think the most appropriate advertising tagline for any hospital is “You might survive!”
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