"When many cures are offered for a disease, it means the disease is not curable" -Anton Chekhov
''Once you tell people there's a cure for something, the more likely they are to pressure doctors to prescribe it.'' -Robert Ehrlich, drug advertising executive.
"Opinions are like sphincters, everyone has one." - Chris Rangel
Suffering with Dignity: The New York Times Sunday Magazine's cover story is a first hand account of losing a premature baby. The author did a remarkable job of presenting her illness and the subsequent hospitalizations of both herself and her baby with clear-eyed, precision and consideration for all those involved. Too often, tales like this spin into angry recriminations against doctors and hospitals for failing to save the doomed, but Rebecca Johnson never lets her own suffering cloud her insight into the humanity of the nurses and doctors who took care of her and her son. I kept expecting to encounter an insensitive doctor or nurse, but she never brought one forth, although she does acknowledge the anger that is always present after such a loss:
All doctors are defensive about malpractice and none more so than obstetricians, who are more likely to be sued than any other kind of doctor. I can see why -- the pain of losing a child is so intense that you want someone, anyone, to blame. On my bad days, I feel that way, too. I can't help wondering if things would have been different had I known early that I was a high-risk pregnancy and seen a doctor who specialized in them, but mostly, I try not to be bitter and to accept that we all did the best we could. I only wish that knowledge lessened the grief. posted by Sydney on
8/25/2002 01:00:00 PM
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