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Full Table of Contents
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Abbreviated
Table of Contents
Home Page
Patient Safety
Silence vs
Safety
Silenced
White wall
of Silence
Silencing
Conflict Of
Interest
Psychology of
Providers
Subjectivity
Blacklisting
Nurse survey
Loyalty
Mobbing and
bullying
Trust Us
Defensive
documenting
Report Rate
Risk
managemnt
SOAP
Management
Hospitals
Crime in
medicine
Sexual Abuse
Liability
Limitations
Free Speech
for Patients
Exploitation
OSMB Medical
Boards
Mammography
solutions
Medical errors
Medical
Complaints
One number
Links
Injured patients who want to help and be heard,
click here.
Thomas Jefferson said that given the choice between
government without newspapers and newspapers without government, he would choose
to have newspapers.
In medicine we have government without newspapers. Patients
cannot find out what they need to know to make informed choices. No one in
medicine records or reports the information patients need to know the most. So
patients will have to.
| | Silenced
Buying Silence
Healthcare either coerces or buys silence whenever things go
wrong. That should be illegal, but until it is including in any settlement agreement a positive line declaring the victim's right to speak about issues that may or may not have been brought up in the
course of the case, issues that may or may not include crime in medicine, patient safety, sex abuse, and such like, is one thing that
can help reduce the extent to which
victims are silenced.
Society needs RememberersThe
community needs victims of adverse events to avoid letting gag orders or
non-disclosure clauses be included in papers that are signed. Gag orders are routine and expected. The patient's own attorney will be used to including them without argument and recommend signing them. But that demolishes the responsibility that patients have to each
other. When you know there are snakes in the field, you have a responsibility to tell the other people who are walking through the grass. Even if you are not allowed to name specific snakes, the community must hear the victim's experience, including the lessons learned from trying to get justice and/or suing or being
sued afterwards. Otherwise the community will not develop the vocabulary and understanding necessary to protect itself.
But really, not tell the who, what and where? Not name names?
Just tell the story of a sex predator working in a local hospital but not tell
which one or who the predator is? Currently medicine has all the power and keeps
it, in part, by coercing this silence.
Witnesses and rememberers are fundamental
to a safe and just society
The statistics on the amount of crime in medicine already are available, but people don't think in statistics. They think in stories. The police are not aware of what they are doing wrong when they refer victims of
crimes to state medical boards (hard to imagine graduates of police academies
being no smarter than that, but it is the fact). State medical boards derail the rule of law in medicine
but believe that's okay. (When it isn't in the interest of medicine to obey the
law, in medicine they believe the law is wrong). So the victims get defeated and
are left unable even to tell their stories. Without the stories of the victims, they never will come
know better, and future victims will not have the experience of others to draw on to help them deal with their tragedies either. It is necessary for patients with problems
to be heard. I have been told of one patient who refused to sign the gag order and still got the settlement. Speaking to him to see what can be learned from his experience is on my list of things to do (eventually).
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and one,
and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more
justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be
justified in silencing mankind." -- John Stuart Mill
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