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Bad Medicine: Daffy Doctors & Medical Mishaps

Jesus H christ, that sounds bloody aweful littlebrowndragon, I have recently got out of hospital and had nothing but wonderful care, doctors and nurses have been patient and caring, the food and the kitchen people have been wonderful, i could not ask for better care and understanding, i seriously could not praise them enough

Considering it was a Scottish hospital, she's lucky to have gotten out without contracting a serious infection. Seriously, though, the NHS up here seems to be in even more of a crisis than down South (which is saying something), my family members can tell some stories too, but nothing as awful as @littlebrowndragon 's tale of woe. I wish I could offer constructive advice, but I got nuthin'.
 
I was in Nottinghamshire.
But her experience is horrifying, they cannot possibly be all the same in Scotland, please tell me they are not
 
I know someone who is a third generation midwife, who returned to duty recently after a year out.

She delivered her first baby after her return & told the mother that it was a boy.

She felt the room freeze & was ordered outside, to be told that you no longer tell the mother the sex of the child, just that it’s “a baby” & she was told that she obviously needs further training!!!!!

She is being sent on a further training course...........
 
WTF, training course, just to say, do not say that again,what if the mother asks? obviously tell her, end of training, that will be £50
 
WTF, training course, just to say, do not say that again,what if the mother asks? obviously tell her, end of training, that will be £50
I couldn't agree with you more.

The general feeling as the sad tale was told, was that the new mother would shout out:- "Of course I know its a F***ing" baby..... What the F*** do you think you've been delivering these last several hours."
 
Considering it was a Scottish hospital, she's lucky to have gotten out without contracting a serious infection. Seriously, though, the NHS up here seems to be in even more of a crisis than down South (which is saying something), my family members can tell some stories too, but nothing as awful as @littlebrowndragon 's tale of woe. I wish I could offer constructive advice, but I got nuthin'.

I have a lot to do with the NHS Scotland for various reasons, not all my own! I also have a lot to do with NHS England - all my family down there are of an age where they are using the NHS more and more.

I've seen problems about equally in both countries. I'd categorise them as the result of chronic money shortages and some individiual situations - a demoralised team for example, crap designs decisions at a hospital for another one.

Comparing the two? The morale north of the border is higher and staff in all roles are trained more. As I understand it (from figures quoted verbally at a meeting with NHSGGC link to the general website the net flow of staff from within the UK is northwards and is increasing from where it was 20 years ago.

It's pertinent data but I don't know how far it can be generalised, although NHSGGC is the largest in the UK.
 
I have a lot to do with the NHS Scotland for various reasons, not all my own! I also have a lot to do with NHS England - all my family down there are of an age where they are using the NHS more and more.

I've seen problems about equally in both countries. I'd categorise them as the result of chronic money shortages and some individiual situations - a demoralised team for example, crap designs decisions at a hospital for another one.

Comparing the two? The morale north of the border is higher and staff in all roles are trained more. As I understand it (from figures quoted verbally at a meeting with NHSGGC link to the general website the net flow of staff from within the UK is northwards and is increasing from where it was 20 years ago.

It's pertinent data but I don't know how far it can be generalised, although NHSGGC is the largest in the UK.

Scottish nurses are brilliant.
 
I know someone who is a third generation midwife, who returned to duty recently after a year out.

She delivered her first baby after her return & told the mother that it was a boy.

She felt the room freeze & was ordered outside, to be told that you no longer tell the mother the sex of the child, just that it’s “a baby” & she was told that she obviously needs further training!!!!!

She is being sent on a further training course...........

Just checked this with MrsCarlos, who is a Senior Midwifery Lecturer - this is almost true.

You're OK to say the sex of the baby, but not the gender. "The baby is male" rather than "It's a boy". Sex is a biological, gender is emotional.

However, this rule could depend on the hospital!
 
Just checked this with MrsCarlos, who is a Senior Midwifery Lecturer - this is almost true.

You're OK to say the sex of the baby, but not the gender. "The baby is male" rather than "It's a boy". Sex is a biological, gender is emotional.

However, this rule could depend on the hospital!

Sounds insane to me.

Harassing medical staff to cater to the whims of a tiny minority. Only rightwing parties will gain from this.
 
I can't be too critical of the NHS since they have saved my sorry a**e from flying through the pearly gates on a couple of occasions, whereas I've found nothing but shortcomings with private health care (except for the nice private rooms).
The experience of others leaves me flabbergasted though. Only very recently I noticed that the health of good friend who is diabetic was deteriorating rapidly. He was seen by different doctors who appeared to do very little. I tried to get him to go to A&E, but he was reluctant. After about 5 weeks during which he got to the point where he could barely do anything he got another appointment at the hospital for a scan. The response to his question about his condition was "Oh you've had a serious heart attack". I despair sometimes.
 
I must admit that every experience with the NHS I have had has been positive, personally. Used 111, a and e, had a hospital stay and general GP stuff have all been good. I appreciate not everyone has had this but in a cash stareved system I am grateful for the hard work and professionalism I have always encountered. Even this morning phoning my gp at 8 am and I have an appointment for later on today.
 
A few years ago when I had pneumonia I received world-class treatment on the NHS. In fact they had me on a trolley stripped to my pants, gowned up and a drip in my arm so fast - within 10 minutes of arriving - that one turned to me, pointed to Techy and asked 'That IS your husband, isn't it? Not the taxi driver?'
 
A few years ago when I had pneumonia I received world-class treatment on the NHS. In fact they had me on a trolley stripped to my pants, gowned up and a drip in my arm so fast - within 10 minutes of arriving - that one turned to me, pointed to Techy and asked 'That IS your husband, isn't it? Not the taxi driver?'

"Britain's healthcare system has been ranked just 30th in a new global study – lagging behind other European countries including Germany, Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and Italy.

A report published in The Lancet medical journal rates 192 countries in terms of their quality and access to healthcare.

The UK scored a total of 84.6 out of 100, placing it on an equal footing with Cyprus, Qatar, Malta, Portugal and the Czech Republic – with an especially low score for cancer care."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...land-spain-slovenia-30th-lancet-a7744131.html

"What was medically necessary was done promptly" does not equal "world-class treatment".

maximus otter
 
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Workers renovating a house on Canal Street, Old Aberdeen, last November found bones in the soil of a garden, triggering a complex investigation into how they got there.

Police quickly ruled out foul play and tasked archaeology experts from Aberdeenshire Council and Aberdeen University to solve the mystery.

And after studying the bones and deciphering records from the last 200 years over an 11-month period, the team has pieced together a puzzle – determining the most likely explanation was a medical student trying not to fall foul of the law.


https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp...e-been-buried-medical-students-187-years-ago/
 
Workers renovating a house on Canal Street, Old Aberdeen, last November found bones in the soil of a garden, triggering a complex investigation into how they got there.

Police quickly ruled out foul play and tasked archaeology experts from Aberdeenshire Council and Aberdeen University to solve the mystery.

And after studying the bones and deciphering records from the last 200 years over an 11-month period, the team has pieced together a puzzle – determining the most likely explanation was a medical student trying not to fall foul of the law.

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp...e-been-buried-medical-students-187-years-ago/

This is how some people believe Dr Crippen's murdered wife's remains appeared in their cellar after she vanished. They reckon it wasn't Belle but bits of 'homework' dumped by medical students.
 
This is how some people believe Dr Crippen's murdered wife's remains appeared in their cellar after she vanished. They reckon it wasn't Belle but bits of 'homework' dumped by medical students.

Crippen was training them? Or... ? how did they get access to the space?
 
Crippen was training them? Or... ? how did they get access to the space?

The house was let out as rooms. Before the Crippens moved in some German medical students lived there. Back then medical students could take home body parts to dissect in their own time. As mentioned above, they had to be discreetly disposed of afterwards. The story goes that the German students may have buried theirs in the cellar.
 
*sharp intake of breath*

:(

There are web pages about it. Many believe Crippen was stitched up by Bernard Spilsbury in the cause of validating the then-new science of pathology. It all hinged on whether a mark on the remains was a scar or a fold. The jury were in awe of Salisbury and there was nobody competent to challenge him.
 
Good to see that there are still some old-style arrogant GPs emerging.

A GP who forged a supervisor's signature and feedback during his training and then "brazenly denied it" has been suspended for five months.

Joseph Smith worked under supervision at two Bedfordshire hospitals in 2018, with feedback completed at each shift. When asked about forms over email, he replied: "I am away skiing and will not spend time spoon-feeding morons."

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) said Dr Smith must "demonstrate insight".

Dr Smith completed his GP training in April 2018, the same month the training body referred him to the General Medical Council. MPTS heard that earlier that year he had booked out-of-hours shifts at Biggleswade Hospital and Bedford Hospital to fulfil his training requirement.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-51048906
 
There may be a more appropriate thread for this. Fungi based cancer treatment.

In December 2019, when Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez appointed molecular biologist Mabel Gisela Torres Torres to be the first head of the newly created Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, only a few of the nation’s researchers knew who she was.

Torres was “a total stranger,” recalls Gustavo Quintero Hernández, dean of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at Del Rosario University. Now, Torres is obscure no more—and finds herself at the center of controversy that has included calls for her resignation.

The storm began on 10 January, 1 day before Torres took office, when the newspaper El Espectador published a story raising questions about her research record. The story reported a claim Torres made, during a broadcast interview in August 2019, that she had essentially run an informal, uncontrolled clinical trial with cancer patients. Torres said she had given a brew made from a fungus she was studying to patients with cervical, breast, and brain cancer, and that their health had improved. She didn’t seek formal ethical, safety, and efficacy reviews prior to starting the work because it would have taken too long, and because she believed the fungus posed no threat to human health, she told the same paper the next day. She also said she hasn’t published the extensive data she has claimed to collect from such studies “as an act of rebellion,” although she plans to submit an application to patent her findings.

Torres’s remarks drew immediate condemnation from many Colombian scientists, with more than six scientific and medical societies issuing statements of concern. “We cannot accept derogatory attitudes in relation to the scientific method, the laxity with ethical codes of scientific experimentation, and of disdain for the process of publication and peer review,” said the Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences in a statement.

“We can only regret that the course of how to do science in our country has been left in the hands of pseudoscience,” said the Colombian Association of Medical Faculties (ASCOFAME) in a statement.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...er-faces-calls-resign-over-fungi-based-cancer
 
The surgeon once hailed for inventing artificial windpipes using patients' own stem cells has been indicted on charges relating to the same work.
Swedes indict surgeon for stem-cell windpipe transplants

A Swedish prosecutor on Tuesday indicted on charges of aggravated assault a surgeon believed to have made headlines in 2011 for carrying out the world’s the first stem-cell windpipe transplants, saying three people had laboratory-made tracheas implanted at Sweden’s leading hospital.

Although Mikael Bjork, director of Public Prosecution, didn’t name him, Swedish news agency TT said the surgeon was Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, who was once considered a pioneer in regenerative medicine, credited with creating the world’s first windpipe partially made from a patient’s own stem cells. ...

In December 2018, Bjork decided to reopen a previously discontinued investigation into three cases. ...

“It has become clear to me that the operations were carried out in conflict with science and proven experience,” he added.

Macchiarini was fired from Sweden’s prestigious Karolinska Institute in March 2016 for breaching medical ethics after being accused of falsifying his resume and misrepresenting his work.

When Macchiarini’s first windpipe transplant was reported in the medical journal Lancet in 2008, it was hailed as a breakthrough in regenerative medicine. Macchiarini’s new airway — partly made using stem cells from the patient — was thought to herald a new era where new organs could be made in the laboratory.

Despite an independent commission in Sweden that found numerous problems in Macchiarini’s work, the Lancet has so far declined to retract the study.

Bjork said the operation had caused the victims “serious physical injuries and great suffering,” and “have been carried out with absolutely no legal basis.”

“I have made the assessment that the three operations are therefore to be considered as aggravated assault,” Bjork said. ...

Of the 20 patients Macchiarini operated on to provide them with an artificial windpipe — from countries including Spain, Russian, Iceland, Britain and the U.S. — only three are still alive. ...

FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/article/internat...-macchiarini-1baeaacd9ad2d19a07acd423d68be3bd

Edit to Add:

The first such artificial windpipe implant was cited on this forum back in 2011:

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-march-of-technology.36425/post-1114951
 
As with many postings, this could live in many different fora – unusual crimes for instance – but I think it sits well here.

A well-respected surgeon has hoarded thousands of body parts over decades, to help keep his mind active during retirement – I kid you not. It appears he was assisted in this by other hospital staff members, which is pretty shocking, and that it looks like a cover-up ensued. Bizarre to say the least. (Edited to replace enthused with ensued.)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ts-edgbaston-hospital-birmingham-b647226.html
 
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The same doctor from my previous post is in the news again – for operating on two patients at once, to make more money! Okay, so the doctor deserves the blame and everything the law can throw at him, but what the hell were other staff and the hospital authority doing? I'm guessing they turned a blind eye in the first case out of deference/a fear of being called a whistleblower, and in the second case that they were raking in the cash.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ones-scandal-sedation-operations-b718918.html
 
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As with many postings, this could live in many different fora – unusual crimes for instance – but I think it sits well here.

A well-respected surgeon has hoarded thousands of body parts over decades, to help keep his mind active during retirement – I kid you not. It appears he was assisted in this by other hospital staff members, which is pretty shocking, and that it looks like a cover-up ensued. Bizarre to say the least. (Edited to replace enthused with ensued.)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ts-edgbaston-hospital-birmingham-b647226.html

Could he have a habit of collecting trophies? Another Dr Shipman?
 
I worked at a union health fund - a very large one that processes its own claims. I was buddies with the internal audit folks, and they told me once that their absolute favorite crooked doctor was the obstetrician who obviously continuously billed for prenatal visits and sonograms, and all of his patients were having twins. Apparently you get to bill more for the visit and sonogram if it's twins. They have all kinds of fancy auditing software but this issue they weren't looking for, one of the members noticed that her bill was wrong and called the fund. He had by that time made off with almost $1 million. They gave him a choice of prison or repayment with interest.
 
Derek McMinn, expert surgeon (Andy Murray can credit him with his revived tennis career) has had restrictions imposed and is under investigation after it was revealed he kept souvenirs of the operations he conducted. He has a collection of 5224 bones, taken from the still-living bodies of his patients. So much for going private!

There was a surgeon who'd brand his initials on patients' internal organs with a cauterising instrument. At least he left things where they were!
 
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