British Lawyer Complains About Criminal Prosecution for Medical Errors
Nov. 14, 2003 - Using the criminal
justice system to punish doctors who make mistakes is a growing trend
in Great Britian and is questionable, according to a barrister in this
week's British Medical Journal.
Citing the case of Feda Mulhem, who
was sentenced to eight months in prison after supervising the mistaken
injection of a drug into the spine of a teenager with cancer, Jon
Holbrook argues that he was not seeking to harm his patient. In fact
he was intending to further his recovery. Yet, the patient died.
His "crime" was that he made a
mistake; he confused a drug that is injected intravenously with a drug
that is injected into the spine. Even the most diligent,
conscientious, and competent practitioner will make mistakes, he says.
The recent increase in prosecutions
for medical manslaughter reflects society's changed attitude towards
the notion of gross negligence, he writes. Our modern day intolerance
of accidents as innocent events has tended to turn medical mistakes
resulting in death into tragedies calling for criminal investigation.
"Dr Mulhem was not the first doctor to be convicted of killing by
accident and sadly he is unlikely to be the last.
The full text of his article is
currently available at
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7424/1118
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