Captain of the ship

Now that the names of the doctors and nurses of the now infamous humiliation of a gay patient by a Cebu hospital surgical staff have been publicly released, we can now expect the medical community to put their wagons in a circle to protect several of their own. In fact, one has already proclaimed, through his mother, innocence and absence of any wrongdoing in the whole unacceptable affair. The defense that he is being singled out because he happened to be the head surgeon in the procedure is like saying “Don’t look at me, I’m just head of the team!” If I’m not mistaken, the Captain of the Ship Doctrine is practiced in all operating rooms whenever a procedure is performed. That should be self-explanatory. He is the head. He is responsible for all the rules pertaining to operating room decorum and procedures.

No less than the DOH has stated that several procedural rules have been broken. But it seems that the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center is dragging its feet in issuing show-cause letters to the respondents to allow them to respond as to why they should not be charged. That should be interesting. I wonder what reason could they possibly give? Is there a medical book that states that it is acceptable to humiliate a patient at his most vulnerable state i.e. unconscious? Is there a subject taught in medical school that allows a multitude of people inside an operating room? Is there a medical lecturer that has promoted about the practice of videotaping a procedure without the patient’s consent? Oh, and is there now a subject in the medical syllabus entitled “YouTube” uploading? Had not this dastardly act been exposed, what rights, defense does a patient really have in the hands of “healers” like these?

And what exactly does this incident do to help a blooming and booming medical tourism industry in the country? This puts our entire medical tourism program in jeopardy and taints each and every Filipino medical practitioner seeking a future abroad. Another blow to the Filipino as a people. And I’m sure not one among the many medical agencies is willing to crucify these comedic opportunists posing as doctors. Right now both the DOH and the hospital are saying that only the Philippine Medical Association has the right to revoke their licenses to practice as physicians. I guess we all know where to focus our eyes on then. The question begs to be asked, “Would you trust your health or the health of loved ones to doctors?” If not, then what is the recourse? Fact is, we have no choice but to trust a Filipino surgeon at some point in our lives especially if we have no other means to go abroad.

Many, many editorials and exposés have been put out there and doctors and even brainwashed students have gone to the streets protesting even the slightest hint of Medical Malpractice taken up in Congress. No, they don’t want to be disciplined for “fear of ruining the trust relationship between a doctor to his patient” or “increase in costs of professional fees because we have to pay for insurance now”. But discipline is exactly what these medical practitioners need. Now. For all our sakes. And we will wait on the PMA for their action against these culprits. How the PMA conducts itself may spell all the difference between whether the PMA deserves the teeth, the power it wants in legislating that all doctors be required to fall under the PMA (just like all lawyers fall under jurisdiction of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines) or not.