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 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 do it.

Dr. Federico Castro-Moure

Abusive drunk physician tries to operate

Dr. Federico Castro-Moure, chief neurosurgeon at Highland Hospital in Oakland, California, is included here for having said, “Do you know that I am a (expletive) doctor, and I’m going to do what I want” according the The Oakland Tribune. Doctors too routinely are allowed to do what they want without anyone stopping them or reporting them or doing anything but defending them. That they are used to having that much power and protection surfaces from time to time in statements like that and the behavior of others on this list of examples. No group of human beings can be trusted blindly with that much power. It leads even to the commissions of crimes against helpless patients. Crimes are the tip of the iceberg. But it is an revealing tip that we are kept from seeing. In this case, he wasn't committing a crime. Driving while drunk is a crime, but operating while drunk is not. They didn't call the police because he was drunk. They didn't call the police to protect a patient. They called the police to protect a nurse. When it appeared that the doctor might hurt a nurse, they called the police.

Dr. Castro-Moure was arrested after struggling with sheriff’s deputies in March of 2006. If they had allowed him to operate, no one would have heard about it, no matter what the outcome for the patient.

Has the doctor ever operated while under the influence before? How would anyone know? Who would tell?

We need for patients, if no one else, not just to be allowed to report what happens to them in medicine, but to see that they have a duty to do that to protect other patients. We need a mechanism set up that encourages their telling, and that encourages hospital staff and other to report as well. As a start, there at least should be a phone number for them to call rather than having to wait for things to reach a level that requires the intervention of the police.

But, of course, the way things are now, people who report problems in medicine can be sued or fired or blacklisted. That is the first thing that has to be fixed.

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Home | Table of Contents | It's a Path
Silence versus Patient Safety
Loyalty versus Patient Safety
The White Wall of Silence versus Patient Safety
Blacklisting Patients
Freedom of Speech for Patients
Medical Complaints - How to

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It's a path

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Revised August 29, 2010