Baby died after untrained doctor took 50-50 gamble on pressing right button A baby boy died after an untrained doctor pressed the wrong button on his bypass machine because it was a less "horrid" colour than the other, an inquest heard yesterday. Four-month-old Thomas Smith was on a heart and lung bypass machine when Simon McGuirk, a cardiac surgical registrar, accidentally turned it off. Mr McGuirk said that he did not know whether to press the orange or blue buttons to restart the machine, so opted for the blue. It sent the machine into reverse, sucking blood from Thomas's body. He died a short time later. The inquest heard that Thomas had been admitted to Birmingham Children's Hospital for an operation to cure two holes in his heart. The operation was a success but a ventilator he was on stopped working, he suffered a heart attack and was switched to the bypass machine. Mr McGuirk told Birmingham coroner's court that he was cleaning up some blood that he had spilt on the machine when he accidentally lifted the lid and it stopped working. He said that he had been holding a metal line clamp at the time and that this may have interfered with a magnetic clasp keeping the lid shut. "I don't know how or why [it happened]," he said. "It was thought it might have been the metal clamp causing the loss of magnetism or me lifting it without my knowing." He said that Thomas's blood pressure had dropped the moment that the machine stopped and that, as soon as this happened, he called for help. Once resuscitation measures were in place, Mr McGuirk said that a nurse had telephoned a member of staff who knew how to restart the machine and relayed instructions to him. Mr McGuirk said that there were two sets of coloured buttons on the machine, one blue, one orange. "I was indicated to press two buttons at the same time to restart the machine," he said. "She didn't know which colour they were. In view of that I went for two blue which I thought was a less horrid colour than the orange." Mr McGuirk said that this had sucked blood from Thomas instead of sending it to him and that he had immediately switched the machine off. "I should have pressed the two orange buttons, which would have pushed the blood from the circuit to Thomas," he said. "In deciding which set of buttons I was meant to press I took a stab in the dark. It was a 50-50 chance." Mr McGuirk said that it had been an error on his part for which he took full responsibility but that Thomas had not suffered any damage as a result. The baby's mother, Lisa Weale, 35, from Longbridge, Birmingham, said that after the bypass incident she was told that the duty doctor was not qualified to monitor the machine. She was further told that the hospital did not have the resources to ensure there was always somebody on duty who was. "[The doctor] was unaware how to use the machinery, as were most of the team," she said. The inquest continues.

What a total fuckup.

1. He SOMEHOW spills blood on a bypass machine.
2. He "accidentally" shuts off the machine while trying to clean it up.
3. He doesn't know how to turn it back on and can't even follow directions relayed to him by a nurse.
4. He GUESSES based on how "horrid" the color of the buttons look.
5. He ends up sucking the blood out of 4mo old baby which then dies.... and then he actually says the baby suffered no damage as a result of his error.

This guy needs to get his fucking teeth kicked in.


Even though this happened in England - even the medical profession here is fast filling up with incompetent IDIOTS  who REGULARLY fuck up directions and get people sick, maimed and killed every day.

"Hi everybody!"

And people say doctors are all smarter than the nurses....

Four months. Didn't even gt a chance.

oh well.

Dont feed the trolls.

The numbers don't lie, you're more likely to be killed by a doctor than a gun owner.

Quoted: The numbers don't lie, you're more likely to be killed by a doctor than a gun owner.

Please don't post the bogus chain email (because those number do lie).  


But there definitely are some grossly incompetent doctors out there!!

Quoted: Quoted: The numbers don't lie, you're more likely to be killed by a doctor than a gun owner. Please don't post the bogus chain email (because those number do lie).

Well it HAS been over a month hasn't it?

If you are well then stay the hell out of hospitals,cause they are full to the top floors with sick people!

You may be well when you go in,but you  will be exposed to God knows what while you are there!

I feel for the parents of this small child,and more for the lack  of trainning this person had before they killed this child!!!

Hope the killer(never holds a job that requires more than a weed eater)gets his or her just reward!

I judge no more,nor more less he should  have a C4 explosive attached to his nut sack,and tell him you can push the orange or blue button !

One will set you free!!!  Thanks Mac  I needed that!


Bob

Quoted: Even though this happened in England - even the medical profession here is fast filling up with incompetent IDIOTS  who REGULARLY fuck up directions and get people sick, maimed and killed every day.

They have universal taxpayer funded healthcare right?  Never would have guessed...

Quoted: oh well.

Quoted: Quoted: Even though this happened in England - even the medical profession here is fast filling up with incompetent IDIOTS  who REGULARLY fuck up directions and get people sick, maimed and killed every day. They have universal taxpayer funded healthcare right?  Never would have guessed...

+1

Please share this story with all your liberal friends who say that we should have socialized medicine in America - just like those wise folks in Great Britain.  

Quoted: Baby died after untrained doctor took 50-50 gamble on pressing right button A baby boy died after an untrained doctor pressed the wrong button on his bypass machine because it was a less "horrid" colour than the other, an inquest heard yesterday. Four-month-old Thomas Smith was on a heart and lung bypass machine when Simon McGuirk, a cardiac surgical registrar, accidentally turned it off. Mr McGuirk said that he did not know whether to press the orange or blue buttons to restart the machine, so opted for the blue. It sent the machine into reverse, sucking blood from Thomas's body. He died a short time later. The inquest heard that Thomas had been admitted to Birmingham Children's Hospital for an operation to cure two holes in his heart. The operation was a success but a ventilator he was on stopped working, he suffered a heart attack and was switched to the bypass machine. Mr McGuirk told Birmingham coroner's court that he was cleaning up some blood that he had spilt on the machine when he accidentally lifted the lid and it stopped working. He said that he had been holding a metal line clamp at the time and that this may have interfered with a magnetic clasp keeping the lid shut. "I don't know how or why [it happened]," he said. "It was thought it might have been the metal clamp causing the loss of magnetism or me lifting it without my knowing." He said that Thomas's blood pressure had dropped the moment that the machine stopped and that, as soon as this happened, he called for help. Once resuscitation measures were in place, Mr McGuirk said that a nurse had telephoned a member of staff who knew how to restart the machine and relayed instructions to him. Mr McGuirk said that there were two sets of coloured buttons on the machine, one blue, one orange. "I was indicated to press two buttons at the same time to restart the machine," he said. "She didn't know which colour they were. In view of that I went for two blue which I thought was a less horrid colour than the orange." Mr McGuirk said that this had sucked blood from Thomas instead of sending it to him and that he had immediately switched the machine off. "I should have pressed the two orange buttons, which would have pushed the blood from the circuit to Thomas," he said. "In deciding which set of buttons I was meant to press I took a stab in the dark. It was a 50-50 chance." Mr McGuirk said that it had been an error on his part for which he took full responsibility but that Thomas had not suffered any damage as a result. The baby's mother, Lisa Weale, 35, from Longbridge, Birmingham, said that after the bypass incident she was told that the duty doctor was not qualified to monitor the machine. She was further told that the hospital did not have the resources to ensure there was always somebody on duty who was. "[The doctor] was unaware how to use the machinery, as were most of the team," she said. The inquest continues. What a total fuckup. 1. He SOMEHOW spills blood on a bypass machine. 2. He "accidentally" shuts off the machine while trying to clean it up. 3. He doesn't know how to turn it back on and can't even follow directions relayed to him by a nurse. 4. He GUESSES based on how "horrid" the color of the buttons look. 5. He ends up sucking the blood out of 4mo old baby which then dies.... and then he actually says the baby suffered no damage as a result of his error. This guy needs to get his fucking teeth kicked in. Even though this happened in England - even the medical profession here is fast filling up with incompetent IDIOTS  who REGULARLY fuck up directions and get people sick, maimed and killed every day.

I dont even know what to say.  I know a few people whos kids have had cardiac surgery at the hospital.  

I am surprised to read this on arfcom as opposed to my heart lists.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Even though this happened in England - even the medical profession here is fast filling up with incompetent IDIOTS  who REGULARLY fuck up directions and get people sick, maimed and killed every day. They have universal taxpayer funded healthcare right?  Never would have guessed... +1 Please share this story with all your liberal friends who say that we should have socialized medicine in America - just like those wise folks in Great Britain.

Sad thing is, here in america...that baby would have died due to LACK of insurance......Kids with VSD are not privately insurable until AFTER the repair.  (group health insurance is another story)

Should not have to make a phone call to get instructions on how to work a machine that is keeping a baby alive.

Those trained in such procedures should have been there 27/7, but unfortunatley this is the result of socialized medicne.

How may more babies have to die to tell the socialists that this system does not work?  Many call for the privitization of numerous government programs, but when it comes to health care, views seem to swing the other way.

This is the reason I did not become a doctor.  My family is full of them, from my great grandfather to my dad.  I listened to the advice my Dad gave me and pursued other occupations.

I honestly have no clue as to what I woudl do to the Dr.  It'wount be good but I'm not sure what it would be.

Becuase I have some experiance in this field I can say some parts of this story do not sound right. Ventilators dont just stop and they don't switch you to a by pass machine. It takes almost an Hour to place a patient on Bypass.

Another thing I find goofy about this This guy had tubing clamps and was cleaning up blood. It sounded like the tubing ruptured and he was fixing it and he was cleaning up the blood.

There should of been a pefusionist or a ECMO tech there at the pump at all times.

This is the problem when you have reporters and courts trying to figure something out that happened in the hospital setting.

Quoted: And people say doctors are all smarter than the nurses.... Four months. Didn't even gt a chance.

Riiight.......
You never hear about nurse f-ups because they don't have as deep pockets nor the responsability.

Quoted: Becuase I have some experiance in this field I can say some parts of this story do not sound right. Ventilators dont just stop and they don't switch you to a by pass machine. It takes almost an Hour to place a patient on Bypass. Another thing I find goofy about this This guy had tubing clamps and was cleaning up blood. It sounded like the tubing ruptured and he was fixing it and he was cleaning up the blood. There should of been a pefusionist or a ECMO tech there at the pump at all times. This is the problem when you have reporters and courts trying to figure something out that happened in the hospital setting.

You are right with this one...vents don't "just fail" (and if it did, it would take all of 2 minutes to get him on another one) and it takes at least an hour to put someone on ECMO ex-novo. Lot's of holes in this story.

Quoted: oh well.

Someone just had to let the troll  out

Quoted: Becuase I have some experiance in this field I can say some parts of this story do not sound right. Ventilators dont just stop and they don't switch you to a by pass machine. It takes almost an Hour to place a patient on Bypass. Another thing I find goofy about this This guy had tubing clamps and was cleaning up blood. It sounded like the tubing ruptured and he was fixing it and he was cleaning up the blood. There should of been a pefusionist or a ECMO tech there at the pump at all times. This is the problem when you have reporters and courts trying to figure something out that happened in the hospital setting.

+1. This synopsis of the incident makes as much sense as someone hitting the wrong lightswitch and turning off a nuclear reactor. It is not that simple a mechanism, and a surgeon in the sterile field should be not even be in the vicinity to operate in  the machine. It would be like saying the "catcher tripped in centerfield when fielding a fly-ball."

Blinded...must... kill ...red ...text.

Quoted: But there definitely are some grossly incompetent doctors out there!!

I say: 'Kill 'em all.  Let God sort them out.'

Nothing like a good cup of cop doctor bashing to get you going in the mornin'.

When was the last time a Doctor cleaned blood off of a machine??

And how is it that this kid is on a bypass machine somewhere there aren't any nurses who know the machine around?

The whole story stinks like yesterday's cheese.

Docs don't clean equipment. Nurses and orderlies do. A nd they don't just put critical care type equipment any old place in a hospital. This story seems like a pack of lies.

Paging ARDOC....

Hell, our local hospital was too stupid to build a new building with an elevator that went all the way to the top floor, but even they aren't stupid enough to pull something like this.

Awaiting the real explanation...

Quoted: And people say doctors are all smarter than the nurses....

That's one of the most ignorant statements I've read here yet.
I'm sure these "people" who say this know what they're talking about.
I've given direction to a doctor a time or two and seen critical care nurses give directions to docs many times. The smart doc realizes he doesn't know everything about evererything.
No time to explain intelligent vs. smart, though.

I get it.
Mr. = Dr. w/ higher diploma in England.

He didn't just guess.
He asked the audience, used his phone-a-friend, and then used his 50-50.

Heart/Lung machine.

I know enough (as a resident) not to touch just the RESPIRATOR unit when one is running, let alone a bypass machine.

Sounds like the Doctor was seriously undertrained (might not be his fault...it doesn't specify how far along in training he was...you wouldn't want a new intern, fresh out of Med School doing brain surgery, but someone must have assigned him there), was left in a place he should never have been (administrations fault) without proper attending supervision, and did something stupid (his own fault) by touching the machine.

I would assume that 'reversing' the machine would be more difficult than just hitting the wrong switches, but I don't deal with that kind of machine.

Definitely socialized medicine at it's finest...insufficient staff to have properly trained individuals around at all times to monitor lifesaving equipment already IN USE.  

Sad that a 4 month old died because of it.



MrsDrFridge:

Sad thing is, here in america...that baby would have died due to LACK of insurance......Kids with VSD are not privately insurable until AFTER the repair. (group health insurance is another story)

Unfortunately things like that perpetuate the same kind of political garbage as "a gun in the home is 23 times more likely to kill...".
I did my first year of residency in a County Hospital.  Kids like that were taken to surgery all the time.   Almost none of them had any kind of insurance.   Under EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act), ANY hospital is required to provide lifesaving treatment or stabilize until they can be sent to a hospital that can provide treatment.    There are hospitals (County/Charity) that do the surgery immediately.    Yes, there are more than a few that skirt the law, delay, etc. improperly, and it might be difficult to get to the county hospital, but the services are there!    Now, someone will get a bill (a very large bill) if the surgery happens.    A good social worker at the hospital can often get the child on disability (and it retroactively pays for the surgery).  
It is not LACK of insurance that kills people.   Hospitals go bankrupt in this country regularly by providing services that are not reimbursed by anyone to illegal aliens, etc., and providing to people on welfare that are reimbursed at a loss to the hospital.  

The cry for "Universal Health Coverage" generally means "I want Socialized Medicine"....and the above story is pretty much standard for Socialized Medicine.  

AFARR

Quoted: I am surprised to read this on arfcom as opposed to my heart lists.

You should know by now - NOTHING gets past the ARFCOM hive.

If you don't read it here, it's because it hasn't happened yet.

[markm]These things happen[/markm]

I've read the story, and it sounds like the machine manufacturer's is partially at fault.  Most of the buttons, knobs, and aren't adequately labeled.  I've seen some printers that had some crazy symbols that doesn't tell me a thing, and there is no written label of the function, should've been written in Chinese, Hebrew or Greek at least someone could understand the function without looking at the manual.

But most of the responsibility falls on that of the doctor, shouldn't have push or pulled the knob unless he was certain of the function, especially in a life or death situation.

Quoted: Quoted: And people say doctors are all smarter than the nurses.... Four months. Didn't even gt a chance. Riiight....... You never hear about nurse f-ups because they don't have as deep pockets nor the responsability.

Nurses get sued for malpractice too, and often for the MD's fuckup.. Anyone with the name on the chart gets a taste.

Then the nurses blame it on the docs, and the docs blame it on the nurses, and the insurance companies settle out of court, and the whole process starts again.

Quoted: MrsDrFridge: Sad thing is, here in america...that baby would have died due to LACK of insurance......Kids with VSD are not privately insurable until AFTER the repair. (group health insurance is another story) Unfortunately things like that perpetuate the same kind of political garbage as "a gun in the home is 23 times more likely to kill...". I did my first year of residency in a County Hospital.  Kids like that were taken to surgery all the time.   Almost none of them had any kind of insurance.   Under EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act), ANY hospital is required to provide lifesaving treatment or stabilize until they can be sent to a hospital that can provide treatment.    There are hospitals (County/Charity) that do the surgery immediately.    Yes, there are more than a few that skirt the law, delay, etc. improperly, and it might be difficult to get to the county hospital, but the services are there!    Now, someone will get a bill (a very large bill) if the surgery happens.    A good social worker at the hospital can often get the child on disability (and it retroactively pays for the surgery).   It is not LACK of insurance that kills people.   Hospitals go bankrupt in this country regularly by providing services that are not reimbursed by anyone to illegal aliens, etc., and providing to people on welfare that are reimbursed at a loss to the hospital.   The cry for "Universal Health Coverage" generally means "I want Socialized Medicine"....and the above story is pretty much standard for Socialized Medicine.   AFARR

Use of County facilities depends on income for coverage.  Generally speaking a VSD closure IS NOT emergency so, walking into county wont work...you have to be seen and receive either federal or state coverage which is income dependant....so EMTALA wont work for treatment.
They can be seen at the ER, then sent to a Pediatric Cardiologist, who then refers to surgeon, who then refers to hospital social worker to work out the payment or possible federal/state coverage.
I cant speak for anything other then dealing with Cardiac issues but, I see problems all the time regarding coverage....doc wants kid sent home on oxygen, insurance coverage says no.  I have seen people fight for coverage thru SSDI only to 8 months later get a letter saying we oops...you owe us with interest now....I have a friend who just finished paying off her sons Fontan procedure and they were insured....his fontan was done at 1yr (per dr norwoods protocal)...Gabriel just turned 7. and luckily her husbands company changed insurance because Gabriel maxed that one out and was denied state insurance because there house is too nice and paid for...

Yea, like we trust all media stories.  If this were about guns, we would all criticize the media for twisting the tale.  Why would they get the story right about doctors?

Most doctors are very competent in this country.  Just go to some other country and get really sick.  You'll be begging to come back here to get treated.

AFARR, what year resident are you?

Quoted: When was the last time a Doctor cleaned blood off of a machine?? And how is it that this kid is on a bypass machine somewhere there aren't any nurses who know the machine around? The whole story stinks like yesterday's cheese. Docs don't clean equipment. Nurses and orderlies do. A nd they don't just put critical care type equipment any old place in a hospital. This story seems like a pack of lies. Paging ARDOC.... Hell, our local hospital was too stupid to build a new building with an elevator that went all the way to the top floor, but even they aren't stupid enough to pull something like this. Awaiting the real explanation...

Shhhh.  You're ruining a perfectly good doctor-bashing thread.  It doesn't matter that the article sounds like a scene out of an action movie plot:  "No, cut the blue wire or you'll kill us all!".  

MrsDr....

Use of County facilities depends on income for coverage.

Cook County treated everyone regardless of coverage.  Any child (including Illegal Aliens) can get surgery there.  Might take a while, but it does get done.  

Macumazahn:
I'm a 2 1/2th year resident (had one residency close on me).  Completing my Podiatric Surgery residency the end of April.

AFARR

Quoted: And people say doctors are all smarter than the nurses.... hinking.gif Four months. Didn't even gt a chance. hr

Well I have not met many Dr's that are smarter than the nurses.  Most of the time they are asking us questions!hinking.gif

Quoted: Becuase I have some experiance in this field I can say some parts of this story do not sound right. Ventilators dont just stop and they don't switch you to a by pass machine. It takes almost an Hour to place a patient on Bypass. Another thing I find goofy about this This guy had tubing clamps and was cleaning up blood. It sounded like the tubing ruptured and he was fixing it and he was cleaning up the blood. There should of been a pefusionist or a ECMO tech there at the pump at all times. This is the problem when you have reporters and courts trying to figure something out that happened in the hospital setting.

We have a winner!

Quoted: When was the last time a Doctor cleaned blood off of a machine?? And how is it that this kid is on a bypass machine somewhere there aren't any nurses who know the machine around? The whole story stinks like yesterday's cheese. Docs don't clean equipment. Nurses and orderlies do. A nd they don't just put critical care type equipment any old place in a hospital. This story seems like a pack of lies. Paging ARDOC.... Hell, our local hospital was too stupid to build a new building with an elevator that went all the way to the top floor, but even they aren't stupid enough to pull something like this. Awaiting the real explanation...

As usual a lot things probably have been left out.

A doctor DOES NOT operate the machine.  It too complicated for a doc to run while he is attending the patient.  There is a tech that operates the machine and thats all he or she does.  NO ONE would even dare touch the machine.

Same goes for ventilators and any other sophisticated medical machinery.

I agree with you. Where would the blood come from for him to spill its?  Also why would he clean it himself?   A nurse or tech draws or handles the blood.

When is the last time you went to the hospital and the actual doc drew the blood?

Quoted: www.mayoclinic.org/cvsurg50/images/machine-today-lg.jpg Heart/Lung machine. I know enough (as a resident) not to touch just the RESPIRATOR unit when one is running, let alone a bypass machine. Sounds like the Doctor was seriously undertrained (might not be his fault...it doesn't specify how far along in training he was...you wouldn't want a new intern, fresh out of Med School doing brain surgery, but someone must have assigned him there), was left in a place he should never have been (administrations fault) without proper attending supervision, and did something stupid (his own fault) by touching the machine. I would assume that 'reversing' the machine would be more difficult than just hitting the wrong switches, but I don't deal with that kind of machine. Definitely socialized medicine at it's finest...insufficient staff to have properly trained individuals around at all times to monitor lifesaving equipment already IN USE.   Sad that a 4 month old died because of it. MrsDrFridge: Sad thing is, here in america...that baby would have died due to LACK of insurance......Kids with VSD are not privately insurable until AFTER the repair. (group health insurance is another story) Unfortunately things like that perpetuate the same kind of political garbage as "a gun in the home is 23 times more likely to kill...". I did my first year of residency in a County Hospital.  Kids like that were taken to surgery all the time.   Almost none of them had any kind of insurance.   Under EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act), ANY hospital is required to provide lifesaving treatment or stabilize until they can be sent to a hospital that can provide treatment.    There are hospitals (County/Charity) that do the surgery immediately.    Yes, there are more than a few that skirt the law, delay, etc. improperly, and it might be difficult to get to the county hospital, but the services are there!    Now, someone will get a bill (a very large bill) if the surgery happens.    A good social worker at the hospital can often get the child on disability (and it retroactively pays for the surgery).   It is not LACK of insurance that kills people.   Hospitals go bankrupt in this country regularly by providing services that are not reimbursed by anyone to illegal aliens, etc., and providing to people on welfare that are reimbursed at a loss to the hospital.   The cry for "Universal Health Coverage" generally means "I want Socialized Medicine"....and the above story is pretty much standard for Socialized Medicine.     AFARR

Anybody not catch that?  Let me repeat it for you, please:

The cry for "Universal Health Coverage" generally means "I want Socialized Medicine"....and the above story is pretty much standard for Socialized Medicine.  

And I will refer you back to this paragraph from the original story:

The baby's mother, Lisa Weale, 35, from Longbridge, Birmingham, said that after the bypass incident she was told that the duty doctor was not qualified to monitor the machine. She was further told that the hospital did not have the resources to ensure there was always somebody on duty who was.

I agree the story doesn't make sense.  If I didn't have so much faith in humanity, I would suspect something like mercy euthanasia gone wrong...

Quoted: Most doctors are very competent in this country.  Just go to some other country and get really sick.  You'll be begging to come back here to get treated.

The incident in the article occurred in ENGLAND.  

Quoted: Well I have not met many Dr's that are smarter than the nurses.  Most of the time they are asking us questions!

 there is a huge difference between knowledge of the clinical aspects that nurses do and the pathophys behind the decisions and thought process that accompanies even basic medical treatments made by docs on a daily basis.  and anyone who equates superior knowledge in either of these topics with signs of intelligence is an arrogant presumptive ass.  

Does it strike anyone else as being odd that there apparently wasn't any kind of label on any of the buttons?

Well I have not met many Dr's that are smarter than the nurses. Most of the time they are asking us questions!

I'll pass that on to the nurses tomorrow when I go to scrub for surgery with my attending....I'm sure he wouldn't mind sitting out a Tendo-Achillies Repair, Fracture Metatarsal repar, and simple Bunionectomy and letting the Nurses do it!!

Of Course I ask the Nurses questions....they should know the patient much better than I do.   They are assigned to several patients and see them all along during their shift.  I may round on them once or twice a day.    I also don't know (and even with "pain scales") how well the pain med is working---the patient may claim a 10/10, but the nurse will frequently tell me that the patient did fine for 6 hours until the pill wore off.    The nurse has a better feel for the overall patients condition..."Gee, Dr., Mrs. Smith isn't too with it today", leading to a change of care/medicines, etc.   I may have 3 or 5 medicines I can Rx that will treat the same problem--if I feel there is no clinical difference, I'll usually go with whatever the Nurses have in their Pyxis machine just to make things simpler for them.

AFARR

Quoted: Does it strike anyone else as being odd that there apparently wasn't any kind of label on any of the buttons?

There is a lot more wrong with this story than that.

As ARDOC mentioned, we are not talking about your average hospital monitoring equipment here. We are talking about advanced life support stuff. The kind of advanced life support stuff that has someone monitoring it 24/7 when someone is on it. A bypass machine is complicated as hell.

You don't even find that kind of equipment in ICU rooms!!

I am no doc, but I have been around enough healthcare and in enough hospital rooms to know that you don't have unsupervised infant patients sitting around on bypass machines. Such machines don't just quit if you touch them wrong, as operating them is a complicated buisness that usually requires the full-time attention of a trained expert.

There is SOOOO much wrong with this story that I am inclined to believe one of two things:

The story is horse poop
This is the WORST hospital in the western world.

Quoted:  there is a huge difference between knowledge of the clinical aspects that nurses do and the pathophys behind the decisions and thought process that accompanies even basic medical treatments made by docs on a daily basis.  and anyone who equates superior knowledge in either of these topics with signs of intelligence is an arrogant presumptive ass.

No, it is just the product of someone not knowing what they are talking about.

Docs run the gammut just like nurses do. They range from very good and very aware to dumber than a post.

For instance: Once saw a nurse who was having trouble with a patient. I was at the next bed in the room visiting someone. She was complaining that she couldn't get the guy's pulse. I peeked, and the guy is as blue as a smurf.

"HE IS CODING" I holler.

"What?" She asks.

"HE IS CODING! HE IS NOT BREATHING!! HE IS BLUE!!!"

A passing nurse heard me, came in, and then called a code and got the crash cart in there.

The nurse, of course, was brand new and had the assesment skills of a potato.

Sometimes docs can have so much going on that they don't pay proper attention to things. And sometimes a doctor, despite his medical training, doesn't have as much experience with certain conditions as some nurses do simply because the nurses experience the condition more.

As the bidding war for paying MD's goes lower, it is going to get worse.

Get what ya pay for.