scholarly journals ‘Have you any recollection of what occurred at all?’: Davis v. Colchester County Hospital and Medical Negligence in Interwar Canada

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-162
Author(s):  
R. Blake Brown ◽  
Magen Hudak

The history of medical malpractice in Canada has received little attention from legal or medical historians. Through a contextualized study of a Nova Scotia case from the 1930s, Davis v. Colchester County Hospital, this article demonstrates how changes in technology and surgical procedures both created situations that spurred malpractice claims, and made it difficult for injured patients to prove medical negligence. In addition, developments in tort law concerning the liability of hospitals, and the doctors and nurses working within them, provided medical defendants ample opportunity to avoid legal liability, even in cases in which the existence of negligent treatment was obvious. The testimony at trial, the legal strategies utilized by the lawyers, and the judicial rulings also shed light on attitudes of the medical profession toward personal responsibility and ethics, and demonstrates how the interests of patients were weighed against those of medical institutions and professionals by lawyers and judges.

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kari Poikolainen

Alcoholism as a specific disease was discovered about 200 years ago in North America. The disease is thought to be characterized by loss of control over drinking and by certain “symptoms,” supposed to occur in a typical order during the “natural” history of the disease. The basic assumptions of the disease model are, however, untenable. Despite this, the model is still viable. There are at least four reasons for this: (1) The medical profession, originally against the conception of alcoholism as a disease, has been made to accept the disease concept, (2) Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) strongly believes in the disease ideology, (3) the disease model may relieve the moral stigma attached to socially unacceptable drinking, and (4) societies in which individual rights are highly esteemed prefer self-control to collective control. The benefits and disadvantages of the disease model should be reconsidered.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Santos ◽  
Maria Hurtado-Ortiz ◽  
Laurenne Lewis ◽  
Julia Ramirez-Garcia

This study examined the validity of the Implicit Model of Illness Questionnaire (IMIQ - Schiaffino & Cea, 1995) when used with Latino college students (n = 156; 34% male, 66% female) who are at-risk for developing diabetes due to family history of this disease. An exploratory principal-axis factor analysis yielded four significant factors – curability, personal responsibility, symptom variability/seriousness, and personal attributions – which accounted for 35% of variance and reflected a psychosocial-biomedical common sense perspective of diabetes. Factor-based analyses revealed differences in diabetes illness beliefs based on students’ age, generational status, acculturation orientation, and disease experience of the afflicted relative.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 1033-1033
Author(s):  
THOMAS E. CONE

This book offers the reader an enormous amount of information about the history of medicine in America and at the same time is a delight to read. One would expect nothing else from Professor Shryock who is, in my opinion, our foremost medical historian. No one has been more successful than he in showing that the history of the medical profession represents a significant phase of our social and cultural evolution. Excellent work has been done in this area previously by Doctor Packard in his well received History of Medicine in the United States and by Doctor Sigerist in his superb study Amerika und die Medizin.


Author(s):  
Pankaj Suresh Ghormade ◽  
Ajay Narmadaprasad Keoliya

Worldwide tubal sterilization is commonly used procedure for family planning method. Tubal ligation by minilaparotomy under local anaesthesia is most commonly used method of female sterilization in India. The death rate after tubal sterilizations is 72/100000 for all procedures and mainly due to general anaesthesia or vascular injuries. Iatrogenic injury to bowel can occur in minilaparotomy tubal ligations if there are dense adhesions of intestines or history of previous surgery. In the present case of interval post tubal ligation by minilaparotomy, fatal ileal perforation due to typhoid fever was detected on autopsy which was confirmed after complete histological and lab investigations. Atypical complications of typhoid fever were also noted. In developing countries, typhoid fever is the leading cause of non-traumatic free perforation of intestine and its incidence ranges from 0.9% to 39%, with a high mortality rate. This is rare case of an alleged medical negligence after surgery; in which deciding factor was cause of intestinal perforation i.e. iatrogenic or natural and it posed a difficult challenge.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (6) ◽  
pp. 304-306
Author(s):  
Ducksun Ahn

The Korean Medical Association (KMA) was established by legal mandate. It is a statutory body for the medical profession. However, the collective dimension of professionalism is a foreign concept for Korean doctors; the KMA is perceived as a fraternity of physicians. Korea’s history of medical professionalization is different from that of Western countries where two different kinds of professional organization have developed: one for the public as a regulator and the other for doctors as a union or trade association. The KMA represents doctors nationally assembled by type of practice, geographic location, and function. Consequently, the KMA became a trade association. However, it is not easy for the KMA to serve two conflicting functions of self-regulation and trading body under one umbrella. It is time for the KMA to build up the organizational strength for the sake of doctors as well as the public. Having a sound trade association is a part of medical professionalism; it can advocate the critical value of medicine against undue influences from employers or governments in the era of industrialization and commercialization of medicine. To achieve this goal, the KMA should revamp its troublesome communication structure regarding its governance. Improving integration among key acting bodies within the KMA can streamline management by better communication. Preventing political feudalism to build consensus within the KMA requires new competencies for the leaders as well as the members of the KMA.


2021 ◽  
pp. 096777202110361
Author(s):  
Benjamin Whiston ◽  
Maxwell J Cooper

The 19th century was a period of rapid change in English medical education. Little is known about the important contribution of smaller, hospital-based, provincial medical schools which sprang up to provide important practical training opportunities for students, typically as a foundation for further training and examination in London. One such example is the 1834 Brighton ‘School of Practical Medicine and Surgery’, which was based at the Sussex County Hospital and recognised by the Royal College of Surgeons and Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. Unlike many other 19th century medical schools, the history of the Brighton school is largely undocumented. Although it remained dependent upon London through the ‘College and Hall’ examination system, this article shows that the school's pragmatic and adaptive educational approach allowed it to play an important role in educating future doctors in Brighton from 1834 into at least the early 20th century.


1985 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-30
Author(s):  
William J. Klish

The practicing physician cannot help but be somewhat surprised by the current interest and publicity given to oral rehydration therapy for diarrheal disease. Indeed, oral rehydration therapy has been used to some extent by all physicians who deal with diarrhea, and the history of its use as a folk remedy is probably as long as the history of diarrheal illness. Why, then, has interest in this rather mundane therapy reemerged? Only recently have we begun to understand how oral fluids are absorbed, and this has resulted in changes in the composition and indications for use of these fluids. Even though the need for fluid intake during an episode of diarrhea has appeared always to have been a part of folk medicine, the medical profession did not consider this practice until the early 19th century. In 1832, after William O'Shoughnessy, an Irish physician, described the chemical composition of the stools in cholera, Thomas Latta of Scotland attempted to treat cholera by the intravenous infusion of water and salts. Of the 15 cases he reported in The Lancet, five patients survived. Latta was criticized severely for this therapy, but it was pointed out (in discussion in The Lancet) that these five patients were saved from almost certain death.


2019 ◽  
pp. 196-206
Author(s):  
Kimberley J. Hockings ◽  
Robin I.M. Dunbar

Humans and alcohol have shared a very long history. In this final chapter, we highlight some of the key findings that emerge from the chapters in this book, in particular the evolutionary history of our adaptation to alcohol consumption and the social role that alcohol consumption plays, and has played, in human societies across the world. This raises a major contradiction in the literature, namely the fact that, despite this long history, the medical profession typically views alcohol as destructive. We draw attention to several avenues that would repay future research and how humans’ relationship with alcohol stands to change and evolve.


Author(s):  
Ilaria Scaglia

This book’s journey through the history of a broad range of political, leisure, educational, and medical institutions in the Alps shows that emotions constituted an essential ingredient in the development of internationalist ideas and practices in the interwar period. After the First World War—a traumatic event that contemporaries blamed on mismanaged passions—internationalists constructed the Alps—a recent battleground and the markers of national borders—as ideal sites for instilling amicable feelings among nations. The staging of large-scale international events such as the 1924 Winter Olympics strengthened the image of mountains as a natural backdrop for peaceful encounters. The commercialization of “typical” convivial products such as cheese fondue and the “cup of friendship” further reinforced this association. At the same time, in an age of increasing industrialization, the Alps attracted both public and private entities interested in large infrastructure projects (including roads, electrical plants, railway lines, and tunnels like the one celebrated in ...


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