Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My dad could still be alive, but he's not

jenn.site

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 328 posts

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#141

Post by noduerme »

It's not moloch. It's all health systems, even ones that are religiously oriented. Triage and logistics and having enough trained people working all hours to handle all cases of life threatening situations... it's a bug in all systems.

Nothing is scarier than the moment you realize you're in the hands of the medical establishment. Whatever that looks like, wherever you are. Ever tried to rush a mechanic to fix your car? Ever tried to argue with a gate agent at the airport about rebooking a cancelled flight? Now imagine doing that while your heart is failing and 10,000 other people are also trying to get their attention.

If you want to blame anything, blame the fact that our society has failed to produce sufficient numbers of people trained or willing to help in emergency situations. And the people who sacrifice their lives to doing it are heros, the finest of us. The difference between individual societies and governments is quite small in the long run.

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#142

Post by DustinEchoes »

protocolture wrote: post #135

>i don't understand why the common narrative that i was told, that we were all told growing up, is that one should wait for an ambulance My wife had a seizure a few years ago, and the first response team clocked in under 5 minutes (close to 3 by my count but I wasnt paying a lot of attention). Then 2 more ambulances arrived The emergency response team is an SUV rather than a full ambulance, with 2 trained paramedics…

What country was this?

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#143

Post by bonsai_spool »

heylook wrote: post #120
bonsai_spool wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of them nearly killed my mom, and another one was suspended due to malpractice and performing research fraud, but was given her license back How does alleged research fraud affect someone’s ability to be a caregiver?

This is the laziest, most egregious "WeLl AkShUaLlY!!!" comment I've seen in a little while. Like, really embarrassing. > According to the regulator for Ontario doctors, Jamal initially tried to place all the blame on her innocent research associate, almost ruining her career. She then tried to discredit her colleagues, claiming they had ulterior motives for questioning her results. > When that didn’t work, they foun…

> This is the laziest, most egregious "WeLl AkShUaLlY!!!" comment I've seen in a little while. Like, really embarrassing.

And yet I haven't heard how this affects this person's ability to be an endocrinologist. Most of any job is routine busywork—and if ethical purity is the requirement to hold a job that impacts the lives of the public, we may never have a politician (or hospital chief) for the rest of humanity.

I am not saying that OP should love their endocrinologist. I am saying that all of this is a non sequitur.

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#144

Post by filleduchaos »

weddpros wrote: post #64
selcuka wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a need for an app to let patients track the ambulance I don't want to blame anyone, but I'm pretty sure that kind of visibility is not desired.

Not desired by whom? I think transparency is desired by citizens/customers. Do you think there are (good) reasons why obscurity is preferred?

Personally I see plenty of problems with a real-time public broadcast of all the addresses a medical event has occurred at, the patients' location in transit, and the hospitals that received those patients.

"Ambulance chaser" is a rather derogatory phrase for a reason.

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#145

Post by bonsai_spool »

blobbers wrote: post #116
bonsai_spool wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of them nearly killed my mom, and another one was suspended due to malpractice and performing research fraud, but was given her license back How does alleged research fraud affect someone’s ability to be a caregiver?

It would appear fairly clear: she tried to claim a therapy would help someone when it clearly would not and when confronted with this fact, actively tried to hide it. How on earth would you trust such a person to be your caregiver?

> It would appear fairly clear: she tried to claim a therapy would help someone when it clearly would not and when confronted with this fact, actively tried to hide it. How on earth would you trust such a person to be your caregiver?

Where did you derive any of this from what the OP said? He said there was an allegation of research conduct, and this is the statement to which I responded.

Almost all research uses artificial cell lines and animals—where did you get the idea that we were talking about 'a therapy would help someone'?

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#146

Post by tecoholic »

scorpioxy wrote: post #114
gobins wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow melbourne is getting that bad! Does your org have a name?

Oh yes. Quite bad and I don't know if things are getting slightly better than "bad" or the media is tired of reporting about it. Up until a year or so ago, an appointment at a GP would take weeks of waiting. Specialist appointments were 1+ years waiting time. This is somewhat better now with the establishment of critical-care clinics operating after hours. This is from personal experience. The emergency rooms often h…

Wow. I didn’t know that things are this way. I am a recent immigrant living close to the city and always seem to be able to see a GP on the same day. Is that because I have private insurance and I pay out of pocket anyways? If I were a citizen, I wouldn’t be able to go to those places (at least for “free healthcare”), and will have the same wait times? Or is it geography dependent with rural Victoria having issues and Melbourne city being well covered?

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#147

Post by captainkrtek »

jaggederest wrote: post #106
DrewADesign wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe paramedics, but basic EMTs don’t even start IVs where I am— It’s the sort of thing you can get certified to do in a few weeks and pays about as much as entry-level fast food work. Phlebotomy is a lot more nuanced afaik.

There's a lot of interesting research on paramedics vs emts (I believe the term of art is basic life support vs advanced cardiac life support). In areas where there is a good ER, it's better to have low level basic life support and break the sound barrier to the ER than do significant intervention on site but slow arrival at the hospital, as far as I am aware.

There is a chain of things that need to be done

- early recognition - early administration of aspirin and/or nitro if indicated - activation of, and transport to, a hospital with catheterization capabilities.

If medics can show up and do multiple ekgs to confirm and en route, thats even better. But critically the blockage needs to cleared, and they need definitive care (cath lab).

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#148

Post by pertymcpert »

bonsai_spool wrote: post #104
photon_lines wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She blamed the research fraud on her assistant when she was initially accused of it and denied all liabilities. She only admitted to it after they had her cornered. I had her as my endocrinologist for a while and I would not recommend her. Edit: if you want to have a care-taker who doesn't mind lying or is a psychopath, you do you but it's a no go for me.

> if you want to have a care-taker who doesn't mind lying or is a psychopath, you do you but it's a no go for me. We've gone from accused of research fraud to psychopath. My original point is that I don't see how the effort to produce new knowledge has any bearing on the appropriate management of diabetes/thyroid hormone.

You don’t see how being a dishonest person committing research fraud should disqualify you from treating patients?

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#149

Post by pfannkuchen »

rich_sasha wrote: post #132
pugio wrote: post #48

I can speak to this. I recently joined a community first responder association (I've always wanted to know what to do in case of a medical emergency) and was shocked to hear the members' horror stories of how long it can take an ambulance to arrive. Like the author, I grew up with the narrative "in trouble, call the ambulance, they'll scream through the streets to get to you in moments". That might still be true wher…

My cousin's 3yo daughter stopped breathing one night, woke up struggling for breath, turning blue. They called the ambulance. Dispatcher said, 3 hr wait, and pretty please get off the phone, as there's a queue of callers. She started breathing again after a few minutes and seems fine, but they left the UK not long after that.

The dispatcher must not have understood right? This is like evil levels of incompetence otherwise, because the system can’t possibly be designed to do that right? So the dispatcher must have been in the wrong, but to make the dispatcher not completely evil we have to make her merely stupid and/or careless. That’s terrifying. Where did they go to if you don’t mind me asking?

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#150

Post by captainkrtek »

ryanjshaw wrote: post #133
captainkrtek wrote: post #16

My condolences, very sorry for your loss. I work as an EMT (911) and resourcing is certainly a problem. In my small city, our response time is around 5 minutes, and if we need to upgrade to get paramedics, that’s maybe another 5-10. However, if we are out on a call, out of service, or the neighboring city is on a call, now the next closest unit is 15+ minutes away.. sometimes there can just be bad luck in that nearby…

Possibly a dumb question, but wouldn’t the other thing you do be to carry the guy out on a stretcher? It seems like her dad was able to get into the car but that last bit where he got out at the hospital and walked was just too much. Or do you think the stretcher would make zero difference?

Yes! These patients are critical and we would not let them ambulate themselves to the ambulance, we would insist on loading them and moving them ourselves to limit exertion. Extra exertion could tip them into cardiac arrest.
Post reply on HN