i havent noticed such posts to understand the implications of your statement.scorpion wrote:Dr. Scalfani there has been a lot of posts on here indirectly accusing the medical community of letting people die by not performing the liberation procedure on people with "end stage MS"(I know that term is vague). Can you give your opinion on this and also talk about what liabilty a doctor could face by making the decsion, at this point in time, to perform this surgery on those who are seriously ill.
Some of the trials have excluded patients with high EDSS. REasons are that recovery is less likely.
each doctor must decide with patient input of course, whether he or she is willing to undertake a higher risk procedure. That was my initial opinion.
However after meeting some ohese most unfortunate, i could not withho,d treatment to those in most need. Even slowing the disease means the most to these patients.
who am I to not try?
in terms of liability, i must declare that I am not a lawyer and would not want to talk about liability. I think decisions like this are very personal. Patients at the extreme do not have reserve, they cannot easily fend for themselves. Many of these are vulnerable in breathing.
in the end , if the notes reflect that the patient understood the risks and still agreed to treatment, some liability risk is reduced. Unless it could be proved that the doctor callously disregarded all the recommendations of his or her peers.
