Just when you think people have run out of weird things to say about this story, someone else shows up.
They were attempting to determine what caused her collapse 15 years ago, precisely because it’s unknown. It’s not going to yield much, but what’s ridiculous about it? They’re not talking about her corpse being too thin. Holy crap, what an odd thing to say.
How are *you * still not getting this. To win the case Mr. Schiavo should have had to establish two things:
- Negligence on the part of the physician.
- This negligence would have led to his tort.
Honestly, neither of us can speak to the negligence on the part of the physician because it’s proving difficult to find primary sources related to the med-mal trial. I would be very supprised that the OBGYN didn’t at least ask a few questions about a possible eating disorder, but hey, it’s possible.
The second part is what’s related to the current discussion, and there are two parts that would still have to be demonstrated for the OBGYN or PCP to be held responsible:
-That Terri Schiavo actually had bulimia
-That this bulimia led to her cardiac arrest and subsequent PVS
The evidence on the first part is contradictory. Her parents say that she didn’t have bulimia, Michael Schiavo and some of Terri’s friends say that she did or at least had bizarre eating habits during a trial where they’re trying to demonstrate both points, and the coroner’s report says that she never admitted to having an eating disorder to anyone, that she was never witnessed binging or purging, consuming laxatives, using diet pills, and, “Recent interviews with family members, physicians, and coworkers revealed no additional information supporting the diagnosis of Bulimia Nervosa and, indeed, many other signs nad symptoms of Bulimia Nervosa were not reported to be present.”
On the second point, the only supporting evidence for her possible bulimia leading to her cardiac arrest is her low K+ level after she went through a period of v-fib, epinephrine, and IV-fluid which all lead to lowered K+ levels. Additionally, her parents report that she had consumed a large meal the evening before her collapse where, “the circumstances of the evening would have made it difficult for Ms. Schiavo to covertly purge the meal.” Why would a patient that supposedly suffered from bulimia for years suddenly suffer a cardiac event from low potassium levels in the early morning after she had a large meal that she couldn’t purge?
Honestly, it makes just as much sense as the idea that caffeine killed her; she consumed up to a gram a day of caffeine (10 cups of coffee!) through tea.
Basically, I don’t think that it can reasonably be established that the OBGYN both failed to deliver an appropriate level of care and that this was the proximal cause for a tort. Really, it doesn’t matter how much of a fuck-up the OBGYN was if the undiagnosed condition wasn’t what was responsible for killing her. If Ms. Schiavo had been walking into the OBGYN’s office saying, “sorry, I have to go purge lunch before my appointment,” it still wouldn’t be a cause for a med-mal suit if she got run over by a bus on the way out of the office.
DoctorJ, I’ll take heed of your advice to consider uncommon presentations of common problems over common presentations of uncommon problems, but I still feel that the Chief Medical Examiner has a pretty convincing set of arguments especially given the clinical treatments that Ms. Schiavo received immediately before the hypokalemia reading. Basically, some people found her eating habits strange, but others have contradicted this and certainly no one witnessed bulimia directly. Also, the coroner’s report lists her weight loss as remote and as far as I can tell, she was relatively stable weight-wise in the months leading up to her cardiac arrest. Combined with the fact that she apparently couldn’t purge her (large) last meal, I’m willing to say that the evidence points elsewhere from her possible bulimia causing her cardiac arrest. If nothing else, I’ll appeal to authority and say that, hey, Dr. Thogmartin agrees, and even if you disagree, he’s a relatively unbiased and sober reporter.
Marley23, sorry for the misunderstanding regarding the amenorrhea.
It certainly was a difficult situation, but at the same time, it shouldn’t change the jury’s decision in the case, although in many situations it obviously does. I mean, sympathy and thinking, “these people have money while this guy is nearly flat broke,” isn’t a substitute for a rational assessment of a case, although it certainly does make bringing the case in the first place much more understandable.
As to the broader point of whether or not we’re appropriate to judge any of the players, maybe it isn’t right. But I’m hardly breaking precedent by bringing an unwillingly public character to the pit. I’m relatively certain that Mr. Schiavo isn’t reading this thread so I doubt that he’ll actually be too deeply hurt by it.
Especially since she had been bedridden for fifteen years, her bone density would have been markedly different than it was originally.
That alone I think reduces the bone density question to being a moot point.
Why in Hades’ name must Jeb and his posse of harassers continue to plague Micheal Schaivo?
WHY do people still think(in some cases I am stretching this term to its ultimate point) their half assed opinion should be weighed in and counted?
If we all spent as much time on our own flaws, faults and mistakes, this would be a MUCH better world.
The courts weighed up the evidence and decided that the most likely cause WAS Bulimia.
They also ruled that yes, the doctor had NOT asked any questions to outrule it.
Thus, negligence.
The ME disagrees, but as stated before, this is an opinion, reached by weighing up the same facts differently.
Do you realise that it was possible for the OB/GYN to appeal the verdict? However, whan experts on both sides weighed up the probabilities, bulimia was the most likely cause, and the clinician was negligent.
For example, 85% of Cerebral Palsy are caused pre-natally, but if I have a difficult labour with foetal distress and a forceps delivery and my child is later found to have CP I’d probably still claim that my baby was in the other 15%, and that the delivery was not expedited sufficiently quickly to prevent the condition. I may well win my case.
Although you may’ve noticed they refuse to believe she was blind after somebody opened her skull and examined her brain. 
Which is to say “her parents say a lot of things.”
That sounds like incomplete information, not so much a contradiction.
Right, but to pit Mr. Shiavo, you don’t have to prove that he shouldn’t have won the case, you have to prove that he had no moral grounds to even file it.
It may be clear to you that there is enough evidence to make the situation ambivilant at best, but look at this thread: there is clearly grounds here for reasonable people to disagree. There he sits, at the time: wife dying, and people everywhere telling him contradictory things about her condition. A common thread seems to be that she was bullemic, and there are a lot of people that say the doctors should have caught that. Was she bullemic? Is is something the doctors should have noticed? He doesn’t KNOW. He’s not a doctor. There seems to be some room for disagreement on the topic, so how is a layman suppossed to decide? I just don’t think, in a situation like this, you can pit HIM for filiing a suit. Pit the jury, pit the judge, pit the expert witnesses, but I don’t think you can pit Michael Schaivo for this.
The Schindler’s were not exactly the most observant or realistic witnesses on Terri’s condition. I don’t think the ME was saying she did not have bulemia, I believe he was saying there was really no evidence at this time to prove one way or the other, the cause of Terri’s initial collapse.
Again we’re basing certain evidence on the unreliable parents. “The circumstances of the evening”? What does that mean? They didn’t let Terri go to the bathroom by herself that night? Why would they do that unless they didn’t trust her to not purge? Maybe they just mean that she didn’t eleave their sight for two hours after the meal, long enough for the food to leave the stomach? Well, maybe she then took a bunch of laxatives to get rid of the meal in another way later. The Schindler’s comments are not proof of anything.
threemae. Read this article about her from the 1992 St. Petersburg Times, reporting on the just-won suit against her OBGYN.
I’ve never seen a good timeline on this. You’d expect a plateau at some point, though.
I don’t deal with this very often personally, but my guess is that people would say this of a lot of people with bullemia. If I had a nickel for every patient I’ve had who was an obvious and admitted alcoholic/crack addict/whatever whose wife and kids in the same house insisted that it was impossible because they’ve never seen any evidence of it, I could kiss this gig goodbye. If someone can run off and smoke crack without arousing any suspicion, they could almost certainly run off and purge. It’s easy to be sneaky when the people you’re sneaking around don’t really want to know what you’re up to.
Besides, it’s clear that her parents (to steal a great SDMB analogy) do for denial what Stonehenge does for rocks.
Don’t forget you’re asking people NOW to remember events that happened 15 years ago.
Anyone here remember a specific time 15 years ago when they recall seeing a friend or family member rush off to use the bathroom?
Not likely.
Her parents have said changing things about her health as is convenient for them. They originally agreed that Terri was in PVS, until that diagnosis meant something they didn’t like.
What did they say during the malpractice trial? They likely said they saw signs of Bulimia. When it came time to villainize Michael years later, suddenly they would say it was otherwise.
this whole situation makes me want to throw up…
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
Nah, not so suddenly. They acknowledged the bulimia for quite a while after they were determined to villainize Mr. Schiavo.
I think that Terri became officially “non-bulimic” to them when they realized that they weren’t in a good position to creditably lay the blame for her eating disorder at Michael’s feet, since her childhood struggles with weight are a matter of public record.
Where was she living when she lost weight dramatically? Oh, right.
Bulimia = bad propaganda for the Schindlers’. So ixnay on the ulimiabay.
hence my characterization of them as evil vs. ‘poor grieving parents’. they are truly scum sucking. Well, they and the other hangers on, aka the Bush bro’s, Frist et al.
Her parents also dispute the autopsy report that Terri was blind. Why? Because they know she could see them.
It’s a case of “my mind’s made up; don’t confuse me with facts” along with “I know more than the experts.”
As a few folks pointed out, it is rare to ‘contract’ Bulimia later in life. It almost always happens as a result of home-life.
effing Schindlers.
Michael Schiavo had Terri’s remains buried in Clearwater, he only informed the parents after the fact (and I don’t blame him either). He had he date of date as the date she collapsed and the date her body died as the date she was “at peace”. He also inscribed the stone “I kept my promise”. So of course the Schindler’s had to have their representative comment on it. I had to roll my eyes at the hypocrisy of this comment
But it’s okay for them to publicly accuse the grieving husband of murder and other wrongdoing.
Why haven’t we heard of that Wille E? You’d figure that the press would have vultures circling Terri’s body until it was picked up. So, has the press grown a conscience or did they fall asleep on the job?
That’s because Mr. Schiavo just released a simple press release, not enough to feed the beast…the rest of this crap is coming from the usual sources, and the beast is getting full…look for the full court press, shortly.