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Suspicious Health Care: If You See Something, Say Something

By Joe Consumer

If you're ridden the New York City subways lately, you've heard this: ?If You See Something, Say Something.?  For those who haven't been to New York City for awhile, that's the NYC Metropolitan Transportation Authority slogan aimed at NYC bus and subway riders, of which there are millions each day.  You?re supposed to keep your eye out for things like people with "inappropriate clothing" (hard to know sometimes), "exposed wiring" (a bit of a giveaway), or just ?suspicious behavior? - also hard to recognize sometimes, at least on NYC subways and buses.

But there is one place suspicious behavior shouldn?t be so hard to detect and that is in our health care system, for which patient safety and reducing medical errors is a national priority.  If only.  For example:

Say you are a ?a prominent and widely respected orthopedic surgeon? like Delaware?s Dr. James P. Marvel Jr., and you worked with a pediatrician (Earl B. Bradley) whom you knew had improperly touched a child.  That might be reason to ?say something.? Or then, when you become incoming president of the Medical Society of Delaware (as did Marvel), and Bradley?s sister tells you his ?behavior was deteriorating,? perhaps that would be reason to ?say something? (instead of dismissing it as a "family matter.")  Or a year later, when police tell you that Bradley had ?kiss[ed] girls and perform[ed] improper vaginal exams,? that would be a good time ?say something? (instead of telling police that Bradley was ?held in high regard by nurses.?  Bradley was subsequently charged with raping or sexually abusing more than 103 children.)

Or how about this?  Say you are Maryland's St. Joseph hospital investigating one of your doctors, Dr. Mark Midei, and you already know that he implanted heart stents in the arteries of hundreds, if not thousands, of people who did not need them. Would you decide to ?say something? only to patients who received these stents within a two-year window (as did St. Joseph?s), or would you tell all patients whom Dr. Midei may have done this to?  (Patients like Frank Ward, who got seven stents from Dr. Midei).

Or, say you are a Harvard-educated specialist in organ transplants at NYU Medical Center (Dr. Thomas Diflo), and you know of an available kidney, but the person had died of uterine cancer and the kidney was allegedly ?covered in tumors.?  Would you transplant this kidney into 37-year-old Vincent Liew and then remove it without without ?saying something,? like that he had developed cancer?  (Diflo says Liew wanted to keep the kidney in him - Liew subsequently died of uterine cancer.)

 ?If You See Something, Say Something? has been working pretty well to catch car bombers.  Stopping medical neglience?  Not so much.  

Full post as published by ThePopTort on May 24, 2010 (boomark / email).