Patients Suffering in Surgeon’s Care’
Instructions:-
Find three articles from magazines, journals, blogs, online postings (most numerous), where the person writes about the meaning an illness has had for them. Preferably this will be from your area of specialty practice however this may prove difficult for some specialties in this case pick a specialty area that interests you where there is information available. Choose one article each from the following perspectives or points of view.
From the perspective of the person being cared for
From the perspective of the person closest to them (partner, parent, child, etc)
From the perspective of a health professional caring for such a person
Choose one of your readings and write a reflection on how that has changed your perspective or given you some insight into the meaning illness has for a particular person.
When writing your reflection make sure you consider your own perceptions, morals and ethics.
For your assessment:
Review and refine your reflection from the activity for this module to a 400 word paragraph.
it needs to be on orthopedic nursing
Solution
Patients Suffering in Surgeon’s Care’
The article ‘Patients Suffering in Surgeon’s Care’ by Ashleigh Gleeson is a piece that emphasizes the importance of both pre-operative and post-operative care by any medical practitioner. In the article, Professor Youssef Amin Emil Ghabria a well-known orthopedic surgeon was found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct for skipping the set procedures while treating two patients. In the first case, he failed to consult about a patient’s heart condition and previous history before the operation. As a result of the operation the patient suffered renal failure and pulmonary oedema which led to her death. In another case, his failure to access the patient after the operation led to her cauda equine syndrome which could permanently rob her the ability to control the bladder, bowel and legs (GLEESON, 2015). Professor Youssef is has had a wonderful career and is really skilled in his work. There is no doubt that in both cases, he had done his best with the goal of helping the patients. His forty years of experience as an orthopedic surgeon earned him a prolific career. However, despite his success, his failure to cater for little details led to a fatality and did significant damage to his forty year career as an orthopedic surgeon.
The patients their families in this case, must have had great confidence when they looked at the profile of the doctor that was going to operate on them. This confidence was short lived as omissions prior and after the surgery had severe consequences. In the first case the patient must have expected the doctor to go through their history and communicate to her heart specialist before the operation. The failure to check on the patient’s history and condition led to her ultimate death. The doctor’s failure in performing his pre-operative duties effectively must have betrayed the trust placed on him. The aim of preoperative assessment is to determine the factors that significantly increase the risk for of developing complications and the possible ways of mitigating those risks (Ann Marley, 2015). The doctor also did not perform the post-operative care of assessing the damage on the patient’s medications or neurological deficits, which led to her disability. After the surgery the doctor had the obligation to observe the reports of the patients’ reaction to the surgery to make appropriate decisions (Andrew N. Kingsnorth, 2006). The patients and their families had the rights to feel aggrieved in these two cases. Their suffering was indeed as a result of professional errors.
As
a medical practitioner one has to understand the situation of Professor Youssef.
A man of his caliber is ever on demand. There are countless number of cases
that require his specialized attention. In hospital, all practitioners should
work as a team (Christine Henry, 2013). It might not be
humanly possible for Professor Youssef to go through every detail of every patient’s
pre-operative and post-operative care. Some of these details should be done by
the other doctors he is working with. In the cases where the doctor is not able
to attend to the patient’s post-operative care, there should be a person in charge
of that. This person must be a doctor equally qualified and must bear the blame
for such omissions in the patient’s life. Professor Youssef was not only his
failure but a failure of the whole team involved with the two patients.
References
Andrew N. Kingsnorth, A. A. (2006). Fundamentals of Surgical Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ann Marley, C. K. (2015). The Role of the Nurse and the Preoperative Assessment in Patient Transitions. National Center for Biotechnology Information, 181.
Christine Henry, K. K. (2013). Themes and Perspectives in Nursing. New York: Springer.
GLEESON, A. (2015, March 1). Newcastle Herald. Retrieved from Patients suffering in surgeon’s ‘care’: http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2915386/patients-suffering-in-surgeons-care/
