3 ms·

General anesthesia, typically used for colonoscopies, has a mortality rate. It isn't common in hospitals, but it does happen and isn't dismissible when you are

by jlgreco 13y ago

General anesthesia, typically used for colonoscopies, has a mortality rate. It isn't common in hospitals, but it does happen and isn't dismissible when you are considering that the procedure was done without consent and without a medical justification. I see no reason to call this hyperbole.

hga 13y ago
Not to mention the danger of the probe breaking through the intestinal walls; per Wikipedia: "The most serious complication generally is the gastrointestinal perforation, which is life-threatening and requires immediate major surgery for repair." Besides the critical damage to the intestines, it dumps all sorts of bacteria into a nominally sterile area. And if you read further, don't just score the resultant deaths, there's a lot of pain, recuperation, I'm sure adhesions are a possibility, etc. etc. I can't imagine the hospital's administrators would be happy with what happened ... who's on the hook for complications? ADDED: consent is in my experience a big think in the world of medicine; I have to wonder how many insurance companies, that is for doctors and hospitals, would not exclude coverage for this sort of thing.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  The complication rate for colonoscopies seems to be lower when they aren't in there to cauterize/cut stuff, but you are right, there are still inherent risks with the procedure itself. It is absolutely mind-boggling that anybody thought this was acceptable.
- enfield 13y ago
  ...it dumps all sorts of bacteria into a nominally sterile area. I hope you were specifically referring to bowel perforations, because normal, uncomplicated colonoscopies are not conducted in a "nominally sterile area." Per Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_intestine#Bacterial_flora http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_intestine#Bacterial_flora "The large intestine houses over 700 species of bacteria that perform a variety of functions." I think you did mean "a bowel perforation dumps", when you said "it dumps", but it felt a little vague to me.
  - hga 13y ago
    Until I switched to talking about the hospital administrators my comment was entirely focused on bowel perforations. And, yeah, I do know the gut has lots 'o bacteria. The first piece of real science I did was in 1977 using E. Coli, and my lab used the "tame" K-12 strain and pipetted with our mouths. On the off chance you screwed up, we just spit it out and washed our mouths out a bit (this horrified a biologist friend I mentioned it to in the late '80s, but our PI was a microbiologist and knew his stuff). All the way to my nowadays taking a probiotic with 5 beneficial bacteria, which along with a few other things seems to keep my gut pretty happy.

by jlgreco 13y ago

hga 13y ago

Not to mention the danger of the probe breaking through the intestinal walls; per Wikipedia: "The most serious complication generally is the gastrointestinal perforation, which is life-threatening and requires immediate major surgery for repair." Besides the critical damage to the intestines, it dumps all sorts of bacteria into a nominally sterile area. And if you read further, don't just score the resultant deaths, there's a lot of pain, recuperation, I'm sure adhesions are a possibility, etc. etc. I can't imagine the hospital's administrators would be happy with what happened ... who's on the hook for complications? ADDED: consent is in my experience a big think in the world of medicine; I have to wonder how many insurance companies, that is for doctors and hospitals, would not exclude coverage for this sort of thing.

jlgreco 13y ago
The complication rate for colonoscopies seems to be lower when they aren't in there to cauterize/cut stuff, but you are right, there are still inherent risks with the procedure itself. It is absolutely mind-boggling that anybody thought this was acceptable.
enfield 13y ago
...it dumps all sorts of bacteria into a nominally sterile area. I hope you were specifically referring to bowel perforations, because normal, uncomplicated colonoscopies are not conducted in a "nominally sterile area." Per Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_intestine#Bacterial_flora http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_intestine#Bacterial_flora "The large intestine houses over 700 species of bacteria that perform a variety of functions." I think you did mean "a bowel perforation dumps", when you said "it dumps", but it felt a little vague to me.
- hga 13y ago
  Until I switched to talking about the hospital administrators my comment was entirely focused on bowel perforations. And, yeah, I do know the gut has lots 'o bacteria. The first piece of real science I did was in 1977 using E. Coli, and my lab used the "tame" K-12 strain and pipetted with our mouths. On the off chance you screwed up, we just spit it out and washed our mouths out a bit (this horrified a biologist friend I mentioned it to in the late '80s, but our PI was a microbiologist and knew his stuff). All the way to my nowadays taking a probiotic with 5 beneficial bacteria, which along with a few other things seems to keep my gut pretty happy.