Martha’s Rule would give patients the right to call for an urgent second opinion, which could have prevented the unforgivable mistakes made in her case, says journalist Merope Mills
Martha’s Rule would give patients the right to call for an urgent second opinion, which could have prevented the unforgivable mistakes made in her caset’s my daughter Martha’s 16th birthday today.
Although Martha met all the criteria for immediate escalation to ICU, she stayed on the ward. Unbelievably, the duty consultant, at home, who had failed to draw up a plan for her care that day, said “categorically” that a potentially life-saving bedside visit from a member of ICU shouldn’t happen – it would increase my anxiety. No doctor visited Martha overnight and after she began to go into septic shock, no recovery was possible.
If I’d been given more detail about Martha’s deterioration, I’d have spent every waking minute trying to educate myself about sepsis and septic shock. Is it too cynical to suggest that this is exactly what these doctors didn’t want – an over-involved, Googling mother, who might make a fuss on the ward and challenge them? There are manyinitiatives about listening to patients and their families, but we were still condescended to and “managed”, with fatal consequences for Martha.
In every case, the system has been used appropriately, frequently saving lives. To argue that such an initiative would be abused is just another way of patronising patients. Good doctors should welcome input from patients or their family members – they are, after all, the other experts in the room. And doctors, however grand or experienced, should welcome a second opinion from a colleague of any rank.
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