Really, what the hell, I’m going to pit Michael Schiavo. On the whole, I think that this board overwhelmingly agrees that the whole Terry Schiavo deal down in Florida regarding lawsuit after repetitive lawsuit, bizarre executive interventions from Jeb Bush, the religious right, etc. was a bit of a farce. Mr. Schiavo, Terry Schiavo’s friends, and advanced medical science all pointed in one definitive direction, there was no point to continuing Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube nor would she have likely wanted one if she could make a decision about it herself. Idiots in Foxnews trotted out their, “Nobel Prize Nominated” Scientists claiming that Ms. Schiavo still had hope, that the right embodied, a “culture of life,” etc., ad nauseum.
Of course now that the autopsy report is out, a few things have been made clear. Most importantly, her brain was much smaller than normal, a lot of it was CSF, and there is no question that she absolutely never would have recovered from her persistent vegitative state. There is no evidence of trauma, abuse, or foul play so you can drop any kooky theories about how Michael was responsible for the whole mess.
Overwhelmingly, the boards have pointed to this finding and pointed out that it vindicated both Mr. Schiavo, the rulings of the Florida courts, and their own positions as well.
However, the collapse that was originally assumed to have been caused by an eating disorder, but the autopsy suggests that there wasn’t an eating disorder and that the potassium imbalance was related to the events prior to the blood draw where the odd potassium level occurred.
So, why am I pitting Mr. Schiavo? Well ignore the part about with him moving on with his life and having a “mistress” or any of that other claptrap and let’s go to the medical malpractice suit. Just like with the Schiavo case as a whole, I hardly think I’m going out on a limb here to say that the majority of Dopers are opposed to “tort reform,” limiting or making medical malpractice suits any more difficult to gain damages in, or other similar legal reforms. Yet nonetheless, Mr. Schiavo managed to win close to $2 million in a medical malpractice suit against Ms. Schiavo’s OBGYN for failing to diagnose bulimia. Well, apparently Ms. Schaivo never had bulimia, and even if she did, I can’t imagine how an OBGYN is supposed to have a better chance of seeing that than her own husband. I mean depending on when, how often, and via what means a bulimic uses to purge they might not even be that nutritionally harmed by bulimia even though tey still need treatment for the eating disorder. I think that a husband that lives with his wife is more likely to notice and perhaps has more responsibility to recognize any eating disorder than an OBGYN that sees her only intermittently and is unlikely to be arround for any purging behaviors. And yet, Mr. Schiavo sued and won a medical malpractice settlement against Ms. Schiavo’s OBGYN for just that. So, just as the autopsy has clearly vindicated one side in the feeding tube issue, it’s vindicated another side in the medical malpractice issue. But while the Florida courts brought justice for Ms. Schiavo, they didn’t do so for her OBGYN. So, where’s the uproar? Does this change any opinions on medical malpractice cases? Shouldn’t it?
