This draft was written before I had integrated all the research I had done. In this draft, I added an anecdote at the beginning of the paper, so appeal to the reader's ethos. It is also an example to show that my problem, medical malpractice is still prevalent in today's society. I learned how to use multi-modality a little more and decided to include a video of the audio that the patient found in his phone while he was sedated. 

 

Alicia Lin

Annie Yaniga

Writing 39C

1 Mar 2016

Advocacy Essay Draft 2

            D.B., in April 2013, a Vienna man in Reston Virginia went in for his colonoscopy, but just before, he wanted to record the instructions the doctor would give him after the procedure. He ended up recording the whole procedure and found that while he was undergoing the procedure, the anesthesiologist Tiffany M. Ingham and gastroenterologist, Soloman Shah had been making crude marks about him all throughout the procedure. But what was most outrageous was that despite not finding wrong during the procedure they diagnosed D.B. with hemorrhoids. They also put off their duty to properly report back to the patient as they discussed using a fake page to avoid long confrontation with the patient.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuSLfF0RGPc

After discovering this, the D.B. was able to sue for medical malpractice, as well as defamation, claiming five hundred thousand dollars (Jackman). What is most important about this case is not what was said while D.B. was sedated but the fact that the doctors, knowing that D.B. was perfectly fine and healthy, diagnosed him with hemorrhoids.

            Medical malpractice occurs when a doctor or physician holds the professional skill to complete a medical task but still fails to (“malpractice”). Medical malpractice has always been prevalent because of many different factors, not just because of the lack of technology, which was initially the cause of medical malpractice. Today, medical malpractice is caused by the lack of quality training, which is caused by our current inefficient health care system.

            Today medical malpractice is still a large issue because despite the technology we currently have to solve the problems we couldn’t in the past, there are different factors that prevent medical malpractice. One important issue to address is that the current numbers that are portrayed for medical malpractice isn’t completely accurate, since both the patients and other medical professionals don’t report many cases. Patients sometimes don’t report cases because they don’t realize that it’s a case of medical malpractice. Other doctors don’t report each other because social pressures and also not wanting to be known as a “whistleblower” (Hothi). A “whistleblower” is essentially someone who “backstabs” his or her own kind. So there’s a lot of social pressures to not report any faults of his or her own coworker because by doing so, the “whistleblower” will be shunned, and possibly fired. Word will spread throughout the medical community about what happened and he or she will most likely not be rehired by another hospital.

This is an issue that deals with communication between doctors, but there is also a divide between communication between doctor and patient. Because of the doctor’s large amounts of patients, it’s difficult to manage them all equally. There is also this stigma that makes patients scared to tell the doctor their exact symptoms of what they’ve experienced. This further causes communication, which could lead to medical malpractice. Communication is also a large factor that affects medical malpractice. If not caused by the lack of training of medical professionals, many cases occur because of a miscommunication between patient and doctor. Miscommunication is the cause of malpractice “more than 50 percent of the time of all postoperative complications, 70 percent of all medication errors, and 80 percent of delays in treatment that resulted in death or permanent loss of function” (Gills).

 

This graph shows that diagnosis is one of the main errors in medical malpractice. Because diagnosis depends on the communication between doctor and patient, this shows that miscommunication is a large issue in medical malpractice.

This shows that the social barrier between doctor and patient as some patients are too shy or embarrassed to explicate all their symptoms or problems, and the doctor does not further question the patient, causes malpractice as it causes the doctor to possibly misdiagnose the patient. Communication in the healthcare system is “vital” as miscommunication increases error and “threatens patient safety” (Gills).

            Despite there being many cases of medical malpractice reported, many cases don’t get reported. One of the largest external problems that causes these cases of medical malpractice is the lack of quality training. Because of high demands for doctors as there is an emphasis on equal access of health care, the training part for medical trainees is often rushed. This causes them to lack the time and training they need to accurately diagnose and treat patients. The lack in quality is not just caused by the high demand for doctors but also by a lack of funding.

This graph shows that as humans age, the cost in health care rises. And because the lack of funding to training trainees, it causes health care to be more expensive as there are less doctors to fulfill for the high demand for their services.

There is a lack of funding to train doctors; this also affects the trainee’s training as the lack of funding would mean there’s less doctors per trainee to for the doctor to properly train and give each trainee the attention they need to be properly and skillfully trained.

Another reason why there’s a lack of training for medical professionals is because of the high demand for doctors. Since many people don’t have equal access to health care, many people, generally the wealthy will have access to more and better doctors. While it is more difficult for the poor to have access to a good, experience, reliable doctor. The demand for doctors is generally in more impoverished regions. In the United Kingdom, which is a highly industrialized MDC (More Developed Country), there is about 1.7 doctors for every 1000 patients, where as in other European countries, there’s about 3-5 doctors for every 1000 patients (Hothi). In LDC’s (Less Developed Countries), where conditions are much worse, the demand for doctors is much higher and the ratio of the number of doctors would be much higher compared to those who live in MDC’s. Even within a nation there are different demands for doctors depending on the socio-economic status of each region. There is a high demand for more doctors in even more developed nations, which shows that a trainee’s training is rushed to supply the demand for doctors. As a result, they become rushed to quickly start treating patients, lessoning the burden on other doctors and lessoning the demand for more doctors, but also increasing the risk of errors being made.

While these are some of the largest issues that cause this issue there’s many solutions to solve each problem. One of the best ways to solve this problem would be to implement video games into the training regimen. However, using technology is not enough to fix the problems we have today; we should reform our current healthcare system to better benefit the community, which then will cause a trickle down effect to create better and equal healthcare for everyone.

            One way to deal with the communication error would be to create better policies or create a new anonymous system that makes it easier for other doctors to report cases of malpractice; it also encourages patients to report their cases of malpractice. This would eliminate the social pressure from other doctors and so that a doctor could easily report another one’s error. In addition to this, the government should also reform their current healthcare system so that it’s more “patient-driven” and less “consumer-driven”(Frist). Basically, this means that rather than benefitting private doctors, public doctors should receive just as much incentive so that regardless of where the patients go, price and other costly factors are not an issue. It would also make the doctors more driven to help the people rather than focusing on making money. Everyone should receive equal and affordable healthcare. Also rather than rushing the training process, doctors should take their time to train the trainees so that they can do they best they can when they become certified physicians. This means that the physician should make sure that the patients have gone above and beyond to meet all the requirements. Just by taking the incentive to becoming a private institution at which doctors can make more money has already made more patient oriented and less consumer. Hospitals should be open for the people, not for the money.

            To combat the issue with the lack of training, video games should be implemented into the training regimen. Video games can offer a much larger range of simulations for not just trainees to learn but also for doctors to brush up on their skills. It is much more cost and time efficient as it would be cheaper in both aspects because a video game could offer a certain simulation at any time compared to waiting for a patient to have this certain issue occur before finally being able to operate and see what goes on. It is also less risky and cheaper, as video games can offer many different simulations and one instant. Video games makes solutions and practice much more accessible.

 

This is especially apparent in laporscopic sugery as the surgeon uses instruments that resembles controllers to perform surgery. In one controller, it has a camera and controls what the doctor sees. The other land does the tasks in the surgery.

Video games in general not just video game simulations help improve the accuracy and speed of surgeons.

One surgeon plays Monkey Ball 2 before he goes into surgery and this is suppose to make him feel a lot better (Marriott). Studies have shown that those who still play and have played video games in the past generally does better in accuracy and speed that those who don’t. Those who played more than 3 hours a week made 37% less errors and were 27% faster and scored 42% better in laparoscopic surgery (Hampton).

Video games serve as a good warm for surgeons before surgery because it makes the surgeon much more focused, which is needed in surgery. Video games also makes the surgeon pay much attention to quick subtle changes and to quickly respond to these changes, which is much needed in surgery, to ensure the safety of the patient.

            All in all, adopting a video games into the training of medical professionals, implementing new policies and system for communication, and revising our current health care system would drastically help improve out medical malpractice rates. 

Works Cited

Frist, William H. "Health Care in the 21st Century — NEJM." New England Journal of

Medicine. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

This source creates a hypothetical world where healthcare is perfect. Since the hypothetical is set in the 21^st century, specifically 2015, I can compare what people idealized healthcare to be in 2015 compared to what it actually was. This article further then revises the healthcare system in 2005, which is still similar to the healthcare system we have now. It offers viable solutions to improving healthcare, and the effects of these solutions. I plan on using this source to compare what healthcare was in 2015 to what it was hypothesized and idealized to be. I will then use the ideas offered as solutions to help support that by implementing this along with video games will lower the medical malpractice rates.

Gills, Amy E, et al. Postgraduate Medical Journal. Communication Skills Assessment in the

Final postgraduate Years to Established Practice: a Systematic Review.” 2 Dec. 2014,

Web. 20 Jan. 2016.

In this article Gills, explicates the importance in communication between doctor and patient is really important and what causes this barrier in communication between doctor and patient. She argues for a communication test to see how well doctors can interact with patients. I plan on using this as a possible solution because miscommunication causes mis-diagnosis, which then causes medical malpractice. I want to use this source to as a possible solution but also show how video games could be a detriment and cause this problem to be worse and provide a possible solution to that problem so that people who oppose my claim can view it from a different perspective.

 Hampton, Tracy. "Can Video Games Help Train Surgeons?" Beth Israel Deaconess Medical

Center. N.p., 11 Mar. 2013. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.

Hothi, Daljit Kaur. Emerald Insight. “Challenges to Improving Patient Safety in the NHS.” 2003.

Web. 27 Jan. 2016

This article outlines the current problems with out health care and then provides evidence on what causes this and how it could be fixed. It concludes that the problem with current healthcare is flawed by the low morale of doctors. I plan on using the causes outlined in this article to further show the flaws of our healthcare system to further show how implementing video games into our healthcare system can improve it.

Jackman, Tom. "Anesthesiologist Trashes Sedated Patient - and It Ends up Costing

Her." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.

Levinson, Wendy. "Physician-Patient Communication." JAMA Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb.

2016.

Marriott, Michel. New York Times. “We Have to Operate, but Let’s Play First.” 24 Feb. 2005.

Web. 2 Feb. 2016.

In this source, the author explicates how Dr. Rosser, a laparoscopic surgeon who play video games, specifically Monkey Ball before he goes into surgery. It first explains what laparoscopic surgery is and then it goes on to quote Dr. Rosser. It further explicates how Dr. Rosser is a doctor who is an excellent and it compares how is surgerical instruments is very similar to a video game controller. I plan on using this source as a first hand experience on how video games affects his ability to perform the surgery. He is a real life example of how video games help improve surgery.

Roth, Neal Alan. "Medical Malpractice Insurance Crisis: Its Causes, the Effects, and Proposed

Solutions, The." Insurance Counsel Journal 44 (1977): 469-502.

Saks, Michael J. "Medical Malpractice: Facing Real Problems and Finding Real

Solutions." William and Mary Law Review 35.2 (1994): 693-726.
 Topol, Eric. "How Technology Is Transforming Health Care." US News and World Report. N.p.,

n.d. Web

 

Abstract

Despite the technology we have today, medical malpractice is still significantly prevalent. There is a need to improve our current healthcare system to fit to today’s standards like implementing different newer and different forms of medical training to make health care more easily accessible. This essay aims to identify the causes of our poor healthcare system and provide possible solutions to improve our current healthcare system, making it safer, less risky, and equally easy to obtain the same health care as someone wealthy compared to if they were poor.