----- Original Message -----From: DocvSent: Saturday, May 23, 2009 10:01 AMSubject: [ai] Sentence of AnesthesiologistA couple of days ago on consultant level anesthesiologist was sentenced 8 years of prison after the death of a child during an general anesthesia for strabismus .( Killing by negligence)
During the operation the anesthesiologist went to sleep , forgetting the inhalational anesthetic vaporizer to induction level and in the same time “muting “ the monitors , including alarms.. The child died after about 30 minutes and nobody noticed for several minutes , surgeon included.( The surgeon got 4 month of correctional work for society - meaning shuffling papers in a Government office or voluntary work with handicapped etc )
I have no intention of commenting on the case and sentence but someone in our department suggested that we should urgently have a “protocol” forbidding reducing the volume of the ECG monitor under a certain level and forbidding closing the alarms as well .
I wonder if some of you have something like this as a” protocol” in your departments.
Best :
Virgil
Saturday, May 23, 2009
During the operation the anesthesiologist went to sleep
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
When I did my post graduation in anesthesiology in 1982-84, there were practically no electronic monitors and the color of blood on incision and monitoring of radial pulse (and heart beat with a precordial stetho in children) were the guiding stars. But our chief's instructions were that no anesthesiologist will sit (leave aside sleeping) inside the OR when a case was going on. I think he had a feeling that some day some anesthesiologist would sleep off during surgery. And that has happened. I see no reason for a monitor alarm to be switched off. If a monitor is giving alarm without any clinically valid reason, it should be changed rather than silenced.
Post a Comment