Modern Medicine: If All Else Fails, Blame the Patient

Here is the stinging truth! Doctors Blame Patients for Failed Procedures

According to the AANS (American Association of Neurological Surgeons) and the AAOS (American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons), up to 40% of spine surgery patients end up with failed procedures.

This, after 500,000 lumbar procedures a year, minimum, over the last 10 years (that is 5,000,000 patients), results in millions of patients with unrectified, or worsened conditions after surgery.

According to these very same organizations, the number one reason they ascribe to failed spine surgery is: patient psychological dysfunction. Other, more reasonable reasons, such as inappropriate patient selection, inappropriate level (improper operation technique) operated on, marital discord, workplace problems, drug or legal problems, smoking, drinking, or psychosocial changes. According to Medline, and Medscape, and the National Library of Medicine, other reasons for failed surgery are: over-correction or hyperlaminectomy/discectomy, resorting in too much bone being removed in decompression (resulting in unstable spines), the presence of undetected lateral stenosis, which cannot be corrected by disk decompression, or improper surgical technique, including the leaving of surgical devices in the body, post op.

This time honored technique of blaming the victim, is not new. Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler ascribed the moniker of mental illness to their opponents. Stalin went so far as to have hundreds of thousands of his critics institutionalized as a result of their opposition to his oppression. How odd that the field of medicine would be forced to resort to the same iron fisted, mean spirited deviance, to defend their shoddy work, or worse, cover their mistakes, rather than deal with them up front, with honesty and value of their employers, the patients.

Is this the sign of genuine patient advocates, or rabid power brokers, doing anything to protect their reputation and their practices, regardless of how desperate, or inappropriate, and unethical, the means?