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Arabia
Police Saves Doctor From Mob Fury After Patient’s Death
2004-01-09
Police in Bahra city rescued a doctor from the enraged relatives of a Saudi patient who allegedly died because of a medical mistake on Wednesday night, Al-Madinah newspaper reported.
Normally, we just sue for malpractice. I guess it's a cultural difference...
The doctor mistakenly gave the 20-year-old patient two shots of an unknown substance instead of oxygen in an asthma emergency.
Needle... Oxygen mask... Yeah, I guess I can see how you'd confuse the two.
When Fayez Abdullah Al-Mabadi, a high school student, suffered a small asthma attack on Wednesday night, his brother Musfer took him to a nearby clinic to give him oxygen as they had done in the past. According to the brother, the doctor insisted on giving Fayez two shots in the arm instead of oxygen. He lost consciousness soon after. “I asked the doctor to do something to save my brother’s life,” Musfer said. “He told to me to be quiet. When the doctor saw that there was no hope, he asked me to take my brother to another hospital. He then left the room with the nurses and locked himself inside his office and called the police. We tried very hard to save my brother’s life but there was no ambulance at the clinic to transfer him. He died even as the doctor remained locked up in the adjacent room.”
The words "incompetent fuck" spring to mind...
An eyewitness, Fayea Al-Bagamy, who was taking his sick daughter to see a doctor, confirmed the story of the two shots. “The doctor threatened the victim’s brother and then escaped with his medical crew, leaving the young man to fight death alone,” Fayeh said. More than 20 police cars and emergency forces arrived on the scene to prevent dozens of the deceased’s relatives from entering the clinic and retaliating against the doctor. Residents of Bahra city also surrounded the clinic to complain about several cases of incompetence negligence. Fahd Al-Harthy, another resident, said that the clinic was responsible for the death of five other people; the last case was a patient with a throat infection during Ramadan. The clinic and its owner have never been held accountable and all complaints are ignored. The police are still guarding the clinic in case of a possible attack from relatives of the victim.
Posted by:Fred Pruitt

#10  Maybe he locked himself in so that the patient couldn't see him rifeling through his desk for the hanging folder on the treatment of severe asthma attacks.
Posted by: Super Hose   2004-1-9 11:01:44 PM  

#9  Finally! After all these months of ranting, I can rant on something IN MY SPECIALTY! Whoo-hooo!

Asthma: no, atropine wouldn't kill him. Wouldn't help much but wouldn't kill him. Initial treatment for a severe asthma attack includes inhaled albuterol (bronchodilator), oxygen, and solumedrol (corticosteroid). You can substitute injected epinephrine under the skin if you don't have a nebulizer machine for the albuterol; works about as well. I wonder if this was the "shot" times two?

Repeat albuterol x 6 or so. If this doesn't work and the patient deteriorates you give him shots of oxygen iv may need to intubate and provide mechanical ventilation. We then use lots of steroids and bronchodilators. There's more but that's enough for Dr. Hayami al-DumFuqui to get started.

I'm the director of our pulmonary fellowship here at the U. It boggles the mind that a doc could do something like this, even if daddy bought his degree at University of Jihad. We see a fair number of Arab docs in the US for training at different (mostly community) hospital programs, and while some of them are 7th Century stupid, most are generally decent and of average or better intelligence. They had to be to escape their miserable educational system and pass the exam that lets them into the U.S. A few of them are flat-out brilliant.

I've worked with a couple of Iraqi and Iranian docs -- smart, good people, and needless to say VERY happy to be here and not there. One Iranian doc (very careful to call himself "Persian" and not "Iranian") lost three brothers in the Iraq-Iran war, and he himself carried an AK for a while. He was even happier than Fred the day we bagged Saddam.

Perphaps Dr. al-DumFuqui was giving epinephrine shots, in which case I forgive him a teeny, tiny bit -- but locking himself away and lettingthe patient die should be sufficient cause to have him beheaded and his children sterilized just to make sure this particular gene line comes to an end.
Posted by: Steve White   2004-1-9 6:05:52 PM  

#8  You see now Zionists? Where is your Ben CaseHistory now?

What? Oh. Sorry. This isn't the Millionaire? Where's Mike?
Posted by: Dr. Zorba   2004-1-9 5:57:55 PM  

#7  You goes to the Dr. of Islam, you takes your chances....


On a more serious note, I remember reading that the average high schooler in the US has a better knowledge of medicine than the average Physician in the Middle East.
Posted by: Mark   2004-1-9 4:29:30 PM  

#6  oh well one less Saudi, hope iraqi doctors don't came to practice in England.
Posted by: Jon Shep   2004-1-9 2:48:45 PM  

#5  Usually, well-connected Saoodi's go for non-life-threatening degrees, such as architecture (they must be the twits who design the "art" featured in every traffic round-about) or advanced idiotarianism. I guess when Daddy bought his diploma the new wing, the "University" actually took it seriously. Fayez apparently wasn't his first victim, nor will he be the last, given the "police" reaction.

In other words, the "Dr." title is customarily an honorary thing in the Middle East, such as Dr. Mohamed Elbarradai, Egyptian "Nuclear Scientist" cum scum-sucking Diplo-Politician.
Posted by: .com (not a Doc)   2004-1-9 2:33:43 PM  

#4  Steve White, is it possible that the doctor gave him atropine?
Posted by: Super Hose   2004-1-9 1:19:30 PM  

#3  From his last intern review..."Not a great medical practitioner, but can recite the Koran forward and backwards from memory."
Posted by: john   2004-1-9 12:49:05 PM  

#2  This is the entire history of the middle east in 1 little parable.
Posted by: 4thInfVet (not a steve)   2004-1-9 12:45:27 PM  

#1  yeah, that shot of oxygen in the vein is often prescribed. I see it on TV every time a hit man wants to kill someone in a hospital bed - beats the pillow over the face
Posted by: Frank G   2004-1-9 12:21:27 PM  

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