No one really likes going to a hospital, but, generally you know that the person looking after you has spent many long years in training. But someone asked “Doctors, what is the most unethical thing you have done or you have heard of a fellow doctor doing involving a patient?” and people shared what they’d seen.
Despite what you might read here, remember, the vast majority of medical professionals are just that, professional and well trained. Still, hopefully you’re not reading this while waiting at a hospital, get as comfortable as you can, upvote your favorites and be sure to add your own stories to the comments down below.
#21
I'm a physician and used to work twelve hour night shifts at this hospital in California. My co-worker (who was also a doctor and admittedly, a young and good looking fellow) and I covered pages from different floors. If there was nothing going on, I would usually be in my call room reading/sleeping/watching TV until a nurse would page me for a problem. My colleague's on call room shared the same wall with mine.
One night, i was reading in my room, when i started hearing my colleague and another woman having s*x. The noises started getting louder and fairly difficult to ignore (sorry but she was pretty loud). Then, in the middle of this charade, I heard his pager go off several times without him answering it.
Eventually, I left the room and called the hospital operator. I asked her who had paged doctor (my colleague's name) and then called the nurse who was trying to get in touch with him.
Turns out, the page was for a patient that was in a serious condition and had to be taken to the ICU. I took care of everything and went back to my room. Later on, I told him that they were paging him for a critically ill patient overhead and that he must have fallen asleep (I didn't say anything about hearing his allegro chamber s*x orchestra). But I think he knew that I knew because he got red and thanked me for covering for him.
One night, i was reading in my room, when i started hearing my colleague and another woman having s*x. The noises started getting louder and fairly difficult to ignore (sorry but she was pretty loud). Then, in the middle of this charade, I heard his pager go off several times without him answering it.
Eventually, I left the room and called the hospital operator. I asked her who had paged doctor (my colleague's name) and then called the nurse who was trying to get in touch with him.
Turns out, the page was for a patient that was in a serious condition and had to be taken to the ICU. I took care of everything and went back to my room. Later on, I told him that they were paging him for a critically ill patient overhead and that he must have fallen asleep (I didn't say anything about hearing his allegro chamber s*x orchestra). But I think he knew that I knew because he got red and thanked me for covering for him.
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19points
#22
Things I've seen in the medical field:
* A patient removed from hospice for a hip replacement. She coded hours after leaving the OR, again, and again, and again. The sad part is that on hospice they agreed to forgo resusitation efforts. Since there was no paperwork confirming their wishes they "went out" in the exact way they had hoped to prevent.
* Different hospital, another surgeon decides to replace one of the major joints on a patient who had no realistic chance of walking either before, or after the surgery. For weeks I would have to go visit them nearly daily for blood draws, as I was the only person around who was able to collect a specimen from them without gross hemolysis. One day after a long weekend of other staff members attempting blood draws unsuccessfully I went in one more time. They thanked me through tears for not tormenting them like the others. Not long after the patient had to be transferred to a more intensive facility as a result of an infection acquired in our hospital. I do not believe they made it home ever again.
* A doctor asking a patient being admitted into the ER how they attempted to k**l them self. The patient pointed to a series of deep horizontal gashes in the arm. The doctor responded in an uproarious laughter, telling the patient that they must not be serious(down the road not across the street) and that they were only here for attention.
I've got more too, and I only worked in the medical field for 3 years.
* A patient removed from hospice for a hip replacement. She coded hours after leaving the OR, again, and again, and again. The sad part is that on hospice they agreed to forgo resusitation efforts. Since there was no paperwork confirming their wishes they "went out" in the exact way they had hoped to prevent.
* Different hospital, another surgeon decides to replace one of the major joints on a patient who had no realistic chance of walking either before, or after the surgery. For weeks I would have to go visit them nearly daily for blood draws, as I was the only person around who was able to collect a specimen from them without gross hemolysis. One day after a long weekend of other staff members attempting blood draws unsuccessfully I went in one more time. They thanked me through tears for not tormenting them like the others. Not long after the patient had to be transferred to a more intensive facility as a result of an infection acquired in our hospital. I do not believe they made it home ever again.
* A doctor asking a patient being admitted into the ER how they attempted to k**l them self. The patient pointed to a series of deep horizontal gashes in the arm. The doctor responded in an uproarious laughter, telling the patient that they must not be serious(down the road not across the street) and that they were only here for attention.
I've got more too, and I only worked in the medical field for 3 years.
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18points
#23
I worked at a company that made X-Ray machines. Doctors who didn't want to change the developer chemicals at the regularly scheduled times (to save money) would just crank up the rads when they X-Rayed patients.
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16points
#24
I made an account just for this thread. I've never told anyone else this, but I thought it would be appropriate for self-therapy purposes (ie, getting it off my chest). My brother and I both have practices in separate states - he confessed to me about several months ago that he convinced a mother and son to have s*x with each other for "therapeutic purposes" purely to fulfill his own surreptitious desires. I believe, ethically, he is struggling to come to terms with it. More so than I, I can only hope. I haven't told anyone else until now, but it has been something I've thought about for days on end.
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15points
#25
When trauma alerts come in during the middle of the night... there is general sense of relief if the patient is d**d on arrive or inoperable. You can tell everyone is hoping the worst just to go back to bed.
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15points
#26
This happened when I was a medical student working in the ER. This 20 something male was drunk driving and crashed his car into an elderly couple causing them to require emergent surgery. He was belligerent and walking around naked in the trauma bay. Nurses were trying to get him to calm down and stay in his room and stop yelling. He was calling the nurses b*****s and asking to go to the bathroom so they gave him a urinal. As he was urinating, my attending went up to him and said "I want you on that bed right now." He said "f**k you" so my attending knocked the urinal out of his hand, pis went flying all over the room. He picked him up and threw him on the bed and pushed some rocuronium through his IV to paralyze him. Then he seemed to take his time with intubating him, letting his O2 sat get down into the 40's before finally letting him breath again. I don't know what ended up happening to the guy in the long run. Turns out he had just broken up with his girlfriend and went on a drinking binge. He deserved to be punished for what he did, but I don't think he deserved to be forcibly intubated for no reason other than causing a scene.
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14points
#27
My father is a psychiatric nurse and he will openly say how jaded he is by the incompetent people he works with. He has been employed as a registered nurse since the 1970s. But in recent decades the government has slashed the mental health budget, so instead of hiring qualified nurses who command a higher wage, they hire what are essentially babysitters with no experience.
His patients are seriously mentally disabled, not the type who need to be put in a straitjacket and sedated but grown men with the intelligence of 4-year-olds. These babysitters know nothing about restraining them when they get violent, they just cower in the corner and wait for the 1 or 2 nurses in the building.
There's also a lot to be said about the character of these 'babysitters.' My Dad told me about one patient who had a phobia of cicadas, so this arsehole colleague thought is would be funny to catch a cicada and chase the poor patient around the grounds with it.
The worse case of incompetence he told me about happened at this hospital that was located within walking distance from a major 6-lane motorway. Two nurses came in for their night shift. Patients are sleeping so workers on the night shift will watch tv or do anything else to keep themselves awake during quiet periods. These guys had brought in computer equipment with the intention of repairing or building a computer, I don't know. The fact was that they were so engrossed in their task that they failed to notice one patient who had woken up and left the premises. It wasn't until emergency services showed up and told them that there had been a fatal accident on the motorway, that k****d this patient, that these nurses realised anything was amiss.
Neither of them got sacked thanks to the strength of the Nurses Union.
His patients are seriously mentally disabled, not the type who need to be put in a straitjacket and sedated but grown men with the intelligence of 4-year-olds. These babysitters know nothing about restraining them when they get violent, they just cower in the corner and wait for the 1 or 2 nurses in the building.
There's also a lot to be said about the character of these 'babysitters.' My Dad told me about one patient who had a phobia of cicadas, so this arsehole colleague thought is would be funny to catch a cicada and chase the poor patient around the grounds with it.
The worse case of incompetence he told me about happened at this hospital that was located within walking distance from a major 6-lane motorway. Two nurses came in for their night shift. Patients are sleeping so workers on the night shift will watch tv or do anything else to keep themselves awake during quiet periods. These guys had brought in computer equipment with the intention of repairing or building a computer, I don't know. The fact was that they were so engrossed in their task that they failed to notice one patient who had woken up and left the premises. It wasn't until emergency services showed up and told them that there had been a fatal accident on the motorway, that k****d this patient, that these nurses realised anything was amiss.
Neither of them got sacked thanks to the strength of the Nurses Union.
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13points
#28
When I was pregnant for the first time I went the hospital because I was having cramps and was worried about miscarriage. I had blood tests for a few days to make sure my hormone levels were rising and a scan.
During the scan the nurse doing it said "you're not pregnant". I explained about the blood tests conforming I was and she sighed and said "well the baby is probably ectopic". My ex asked what that meant and her exact response was "it means your baby is dead and your wife could rupture and bleed to death in her sleep." Then she turned off the equipment and walked off.
It turned out I just wasn't as far along as I thought, but I did lose the baby anyway three weeks later. It was a missed miscarriage. When they told me I was left in a room for five hours, eventually given a tablet and told to come back in two days with no explanation of what was going to happen.
My mum was also given a crash c section with unsterilsed instruments and ended up with an infection. Her heart stopped and she was advised to not try for anymore children.
During the scan the nurse doing it said "you're not pregnant". I explained about the blood tests conforming I was and she sighed and said "well the baby is probably ectopic". My ex asked what that meant and her exact response was "it means your baby is dead and your wife could rupture and bleed to death in her sleep." Then she turned off the equipment and walked off.
It turned out I just wasn't as far along as I thought, but I did lose the baby anyway three weeks later. It was a missed miscarriage. When they told me I was left in a room for five hours, eventually given a tablet and told to come back in two days with no explanation of what was going to happen.
My mum was also given a crash c section with unsterilsed instruments and ended up with an infection. Her heart stopped and she was advised to not try for anymore children.
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12points
#29
Med4 student here.
During one of my internal medicine clerkship in a small hospital, i get paged to a cardiorespiratory arrest in the cath lab. I arrive there and a whole team is already working (a way outdated) ACLS protocol on a patient that was undergoing PTCA earlier. Apparently the interventional cardiologist has just placed a stent and was withdrawing when the patient had the arrest. After 40-45 minutes of resuscitation the patient did not pick up so I was expecting them to just announce the time of death. That's when it gets "unethical". The whole staff agreed to just send the patient to CCU (knowing he's dead), intubated on ambubag, with a monitor showing a nurse's pulse and oxymetry, and to tell the parents that the intervention was successful and that he needs observation before being discharged to regular floor. The patient was kept in the CCU and the staff would tell the family gradually that he was getting worse, and 2 hours later, they told them that he just died because couldn't tolerate the procedure. All this to protect the cardiologist and so that he keeps a good reputation and record.
After I asked around, they were apparently doing this for every arrest that would happen during catheterization in this hospital...
During one of my internal medicine clerkship in a small hospital, i get paged to a cardiorespiratory arrest in the cath lab. I arrive there and a whole team is already working (a way outdated) ACLS protocol on a patient that was undergoing PTCA earlier. Apparently the interventional cardiologist has just placed a stent and was withdrawing when the patient had the arrest. After 40-45 minutes of resuscitation the patient did not pick up so I was expecting them to just announce the time of death. That's when it gets "unethical". The whole staff agreed to just send the patient to CCU (knowing he's dead), intubated on ambubag, with a monitor showing a nurse's pulse and oxymetry, and to tell the parents that the intervention was successful and that he needs observation before being discharged to regular floor. The patient was kept in the CCU and the staff would tell the family gradually that he was getting worse, and 2 hours later, they told them that he just died because couldn't tolerate the procedure. All this to protect the cardiologist and so that he keeps a good reputation and record.
After I asked around, they were apparently doing this for every arrest that would happen during catheterization in this hospital...
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11points
#30
An interesting moral quandary my father, an oncologist, encountered. He had just given a patient a very bad diagnosis, something very much terminal, and not much time left to live. The guy said he was going to go on a spending spree with all his credit cards and gift away a lot of the stuff to loved ones. My dad confides that he technically had an obligation to report such information to credit bureaus or whatever, but after a little thought figured what the hell, let the dying guy have his day. What does reddit think of this?
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11points
