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A Doctor Remotely Told A Patient He Was Going To Die Using A Video-Link Robot (bbc.com)
dryriver quotes the BBC: A doctor in California told a patient he was going to die using a robot with a video-link screen. Ernest Quintana, 78, was at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fremont when a doctor — appearing on the robot's screen — informed him that he would die within a few days. A family friend wrote on social media that it was "not the way to show value and compassion to a patient". The hospital says it "regrets falling short" of the family's expectations.
Mr Quintana died the next day.
Mr Quintana died the next day.
The full story is that the doctors did see the patient earlier in the day, and the patient died the next day. The doctor said he had just received the MRI results. Unclear if the same doctor saw him earlier in the day or if it was other doctors.
So, wait until morning to give the news, or give the news immediately? The fault here seems more with not having a nurse or other professional in the room at the time (which was the standard procedure).
People need to read more than the headlines and summaries.
Did you just read the headline, or only read the summary? Read the article maybe. The patient died the next day, the phone call was made apparently soon after getting the MRI results and the phone call was in the evening and the doctor had presumably gone home. So, wait until the next day to give an update to the patient, do a voice only call, or do a video call?
For me I'd rather get the news sooner that the condition was inoperable. More time to get other family notified. The real fault was that this was done without having an additional medical professional in the room at the time which was standard procedure for the hospital.
And this is exactly why I bash Democrats who want to ban private health insurance and force all of us to go on shitty medicare.
You are confusing Medicare and Medicaid and the vastly different reimbursement rates and coverage that they offer. Nearly every doctor and hospital accepts Medicare; in fact, if Medicare was abolished a large number of hospitals and doctors would go out of business.
And the vast majority of actual doctors want Medicare for all, so there's that.
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