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A Doctor Remotely Told A Patient He Was Going To Die Using A Video-Link Robot (bbc.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the bedside-manners dept.

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.

10 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Where's the surprise here? by mykepredko · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For years, here on /., there have been stories about how people use technology - I think the first time was Radio Shack laying off employees: https://slashdot.org/story/06/...

    I guess that you can see why people use technology to avoid unpleasant situations, but they should be highlighted as being inappropriate with the message being that like a Stark, "The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword."

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    1. Re:Where's the surprise here? by Solandri · · Score: 3, Insightful

      but they should be highlighted as being inappropriate with the message being that like a Stark, "The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword."

      The doctor wasn't the one who gave him the disease. I'm having trouble finding out what this "chronic lung disease" was - it seems to be omitted in all the news reports (the quality of journalism has fallen markedly in the last few decades). If it was smoking-related, the guy did it to himself.

      The appropriate catchphrase here is "shooting the messenger." I get that the family and the guy were upset to find out he'd be dying so soon, but there's no reason to take it out on the doctor. The doctor was only the messenger.

      Put another way, would they rather have found out via video conference and had 48 hours to spend together and prepare for the end? Or would they have preferred to lose 10%-20% of that remaining time waiting until a doctor could deliver the news in person? Given the short timeframe of the diagnosis, I think informing them ASAP by any means possible should've been the priority.

  2. wasn't a robot you tards by iggymanz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A remotely controlled machine is not a robot. The voice telling him he would die was the doctors. He spoke the truth. If you can't handle the truth of someone near death's fate stay out of hospitals. Life is cruel and a bitch, then you die.

  3. Cowardice by gweihir · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes, I get that telling this to a patient is hard. But if you cannot do it in person, then do not be a doctor or do pathology were patients are already dead.

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    1. Re:Cowardice by stephanruby · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe it was just pragmatism, not cowardice. The patient died the very next day. It's very possible that the patient was already in hospice care and that the doctor couldn't get to the patient in time to tell him the diagnosis in person.

      In the case of my mother, the homecare hospice nurse is the one that told us that she only had three days left to live (based on the discoloration of her skin). And her prediction was remarkably accurate. She had been battling lung cancer for the last three years, so it's not like this came as a surprise to any of us. But the headsup from the nurse is what allowed my brother to fly in to see her one very last time.

  4. Pure clickbait story by timholman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This story is pure one-sided clickbait.

    There's no way that this man, and his family, were not aware that his condition was critical. The doctor (who might have been hundreds of miles away) made the correct decision to inform the patient immediately of his prognosis.

    Being there in person wouldn't have changed a thing. Quite the contrary - the patient very probably would have died waiting for the doctor to show up in person to tell him exactly what he and his family almost certainly already knew - that his life was about to end.

    This is a story designed to make an insurance company look evil. There may be plenty of valid reasons to hate Kaiser Permanente, but this incident was not one of them. Note from the article: ""The evening video tele-visit was a follow-up to earlier physician visits." The family in fact did have previous personal consultations, where I'm sure they were told what to expect if the test results came out badly. The tele-visit was the doctor following up with them in as timely a manner as possible.

    1. Re:Pure clickbait story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      My oral surgeon used an ancient VHS tape to tell me having my wisdom teeth removed might fuck up all feeling in my jaw. Who do I see about being outraged?

      You're absolutely right. This story is another tempest in a teacup.

  5. Re: So, maybe not the best bedside manner by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How terrible for the doctor to do that. Much better to have told him to book an appointment to come in and get tests results thr next day...?

  6. This isn't even high tech - just a phone call by ron_ivi · · Score: 4, Insightful
    This is just a teleconferencing video call.

    The fact that it was connected to a robot is just to make a clickbait headline.

  7. Re: So, maybe not the best bedside manner by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So why not just phone call?

    This basically was a phone call. Phones are used to deliver bad news all the time. Just because this phone was called a "robot" doesn't make it evil.