{"id":994,"date":"2011-03-12T15:58:59","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T14:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=994"},"modified":"2011-03-12T15:58:59","modified_gmt":"2011-03-12T14:58:59","slug":"a-new-standard-for-medics-perfection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2011\/03\/12\/a-new-standard-for-medics-perfection\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Standard for Medics: Perfection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lord knows why, but I keep going back to Secondhand Smoke, the pro-life, global-warmin&#8217;-denyin&#8217;, public-healthcare-hatin&#8217;, intelligent-design-lovin&#8217;, \u00a0<em>Daily-Mail<\/em>-quotin&#8217; blog written by Discovery Institute affiliated lawyer Wesley Smith. \u00a0I try to stay away, but like a child peeping between his fingers while hiding his eyes, I&#8217;m just fascinated by it.<\/p>\n<p>A recent post concerns a Kiwi woman whose doctors r<a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/health\/2011\/03\/07\/teen-returns-home-2-months-hospital-turns-life-support\/print\">emoved her life-support machine<\/a> in the belief that it was futile. \u00a0This was contrary to the wishes of her parents, who are acupuncturists who &#8220;had drawn on specialist acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners for support during the critical period when life support was withdrawn&#8221;. \u00a0She survived.<\/p>\n<p>In Smith&#8217;s telling of the story, the doctors &#8220;forced&#8221; the patient off the machine &#8211; which, to be honest, can&#8217;t have been all that hard given that she was unconscious. \u00a0He goes on:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This is a warning.\u00a0 Doctors don\u2019t know everything.\u00a0 Hospitals are not always right.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, yeah. \u00a0But that doesn&#8217;t mean that they oughtn&#8217;t to have made the decision that they made. \u00a0Isn&#8217;t it obvious that medics don&#8217;t have perfect foresight? \u00a0Isn&#8217;t it obvious that there&#8217;s always going to be the odd (very odd) recoveries from miserable situations? \u00a0That doesn&#8217;t mean that it&#8217;s illegitimate to make decisions about futility, or that it&#8217;s illegitimate to act on them. \u00a0It doesn&#8217;t mean that it&#8217;s wrong to make decisions based on medical judgement. \u00a0Couldn&#8217;t we equally well say that recovery was evidence that the life-support machine wasn&#8217;t necessary anyway, and ought to have been withdrawn a lot sooner (and perhaps not used at all)? \u00a0After all, if you&#8217;re going to play on medical fallibility, you can&#8217;t pick and choose between mistakes.<\/p>\n<p>Is Smith saying that it&#8217;s always impermissible to remove treatment based on judgement short of godlike omniscience? \u00a0Strange.<!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lord knows why, but I keep going back to Secondhand Smoke, the pro-life, global-warmin&#8217;-denyin&#8217;, public-healthcare-hatin&#8217;, intelligent-design-lovin&#8217;, \u00a0Daily-Mail-quotin&#8217; blog written by Discovery Institute affiliated lawyer Wesley Smith. \u00a0I try to stay away, but like a child peeping between his fingers while hiding his eyes, I&#8217;m just fascinated by it. A recent post concerns a Kiwi woman [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2011\/03\/12\/a-new-standard-for-medics-perfection\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1240,968,591,1241],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogosphere","category-clinical-ethics","category-life-and-death","category-tinfoil-hat"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A New Standard for Medics: Perfection - Journal of Medical Ethics blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2011\/03\/12\/a-new-standard-for-medics-perfection\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A New Standard for Medics: Perfection - Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lord knows why, but I keep going back to Secondhand Smoke, the pro-life, global-warmin&#8217;-denyin&#8217;, public-healthcare-hatin&#8217;, intelligent-design-lovin&#8217;, \u00a0Daily-Mail-quotin&#8217; blog written by Discovery Institute affiliated lawyer Wesley Smith. \u00a0I try to stay away, but like a child peeping between his fingers while hiding his eyes, I&#8217;m just fascinated by it. A recent post concerns a Kiwi woman [...]Read More...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2011\/03\/12\/a-new-standard-for-medics-perfection\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-12T14:58:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2011\\\/03\\\/12\\\/a-new-standard-for-medics-perfection\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2011\\\/03\\\/12\\\/a-new-standard-for-medics-perfection\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"BMJ\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ba3da426ed20e8f1d933ca367d8216fe\"},\"headline\":\"A New Standard for Medics: Perfection\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-03-12T14:58:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2011\\\/03\\\/12\\\/a-new-standard-for-medics-perfection\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":318,\"commentCount\":3,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Blogosphere\",\"clinical ethics\",\"Life and Death\",\"Tinfoil Hat\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2011\\\/03\\\/12\\\/a-new-standard-for-medics-perfection\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2011\\\/03\\\/12\\\/a-new-standard-for-medics-perfection\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2011\\\/03\\\/12\\\/a-new-standard-for-medics-perfection\\\/\",\"name\":\"A New Standard for Medics: Perfection - 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