Medical Miracles or Misdiagnoses?
September 3rd, 2010 | by Nathan | Published in Miscellany | 1 Comment
In keeping with the medical theme from this morning, I bring you this story from the Today show about a stillborn baby brought back from the dead by two hours of cuddling with his very stubborn (and very happy) mom.
Lovely story, even if they did have to import parents from Australia to find them. What I might suggest though, is instead of the “medical miracle” that the Today correspondent called it, this might just be a case of a doctor who made a supremely bad call on whether or not this baby was actually alive.
The mother recounted how the doctor kept saying, I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it, as the baby squirmed back to life. That’s the same muttering doctors probably make when they misdose a patient, for example, and kill them.
I’d go further and venture that all of these so-called Medical Miracles, whether a stillborn that pops back to life or Uncle Walt, who has a massive heart attack and lies dead on the hospital bed for ten minutes before coming back for more turkey dinners, are actually something much more mundane (and, sadly, more common): doctor error.
Just remember. If it comes back to life, it was probably dead to begin with.
But I’ll let you decide:
September 3rd, 2010at 2:33 pm(#)
Here’s what I learn from this. In the last bit of the interview with the couple they tell of how the doctor refuses to come back to see the baby’s movements and assess things. It is only when they tell him that they have made their peace, and he can come and take the cold, lifeless carcass that he agrees to come back into the room.
It is likely that if this couple hadn’t had midwifery care, the baby would have been taken from them far before this as any grieving may have been seen as maudlin and inappropriate by the so-called healers.
Doctors without empathy and curiosity are mere technicians of life.
in my humble opinion.