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Where the Dust Settles – Lessons from the past provide warnings for the future
Where the Dust Settles – Lessons from the past provide warnings for the future by Duncan Graham
Ornamental language
There are many very important people in the community. We are surrounded by them. And they are very easy to spot. They are the people who don’t have to obey road rules like the rest of us. They don’t have to obey social distancing rules. They can talk very loudly on their mobile phones anywhere they want whenever the urge arises. Stand back and let them at it. After all, they are talking to other very important people about extremely vital things.
Polypropylene Vaginal Mesh
Today, 21 November 2019, the Federal Court gave judgment in the long-running class action against Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson Medical for the sale and use of polypropylene vaginal mesh for the treatment of pelvic organ prolapse and polypropylene tape for the treatment of stress urinary incontinence.
Dogs and Dicks
The central character in Philip Roth’s The Counterlife described the priorities of his English wife’s family as, “if you weren’t a dog or didn’t have a penis, you weren’t likely to get much attention.” He was clearly referring to ‘good’ attention rather than the all too familiar ‘bad’ attention lying behind the ‘me too’ movement.
Being Good
Most of us are brought up to believe that, if we work hard, treat people decently, adhere to values such as honesty and fairness, then we will have a happy life. But as Roth says in The Counterlife, “It’s just heartbreaking that if you’re nice to people, if you’re reasonable, if you’re modest, they treat all over you… [I]t’s a cruel thing that all the virtues that we’ve been brought up with are nothing, absolutely nothing, in marriage, at work, everywhere.”
Why Patients Sue Doctors launched
One Thursday 11 April 2019 we launched Why Patients Sue Doctors at Maurice Byers Chambers. The book was launched by the ABC’s National Medical Reporter, Sophie Scott. All 3 authors were present and spoke about the book. Duncan Graham, Bernard Kelly and David Richards, then signed books and were inundated with requests from both doctors and lawyers. A great night was had by the 100 guests in attendance.
Medicine and Law
As a medical student, I was taught to engage with patients, listen to what they had to say and take a good history. The practice of medicine was a little different. Patients were often reduced to a label (the burst colostomy bag up in gastro), a set of results (the woman with crap LFTs), acronyms (the man with SS and MODS in ICU), or organs (the Spleen in room 10). Short hand descriptions of cases promoted efficiency, and helped with the necessary professional detachment.
Law and Medicine
Many years ago, I acted for a family in an inquest into the death of a wife, mother and sister, who died within a couple of weeks of delivering her baby as a result of complications from an undiagnosed spinal epidural abscess. The hearing took place in the country. As part of my job, I had to cross-examine local general practitioners. The next day, the doctors’ names and photos were splashed across the front page of the local paper. They could have been criminals for all the viewing public knew. Quoted lines from my questioning gave their conduct the feel of villainy. No doubt enraged parishioners wanted them run out of town.