Of course there is no such thing as the Journal of Iatrogenic Medicine, but sometimes I wonder if there should be.

For the record Iatrogenic is death, illness, or injury caused by a medical practitioner. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on the subject. Iatrogenia is a frank violation of the real first rule of medicine Primum non nocere, which is Latin for first do no harm. Which, despite it’s inclusion in the Hippocratic Oath apparently only dates to the 19th century. Still the principle is sound and often requires medical folks to do nothing because the cause of the problem is totally opaque. I’ve often told co workers that they shouldn’t just do something, but stand there until they know what to do. I think that’s a more sound course of action than trying a treatment because of the compulsion to “do something”. Every treatment, procedure, or medication has some degree of risk of harming the patient. The more we learn, the more it seems that things that we were taught might help, but couldn’t hurt, actually can hurt. Oxygen therapy and spinal immobilization come to mind in the case of EMS. As more studies are done on both topics, we learn that either can cause more harm than good when done under the wrong circumstances.

Every once in a while I’ll encounter a patient who is extremely ill or even dying and I’ll have no idea what is causing this. It’s a helpless feeling to see a sick person and not know exactly what to do to help them. At times like this I practice minimalist medicine. Which is to say that I stick with the ABCs, Airway, Breathing, and Circulation and use a large bolus of diesel fuel to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. In those cases it’s a relief to go back a few hours later and have the physician tell you that he couldn’t figure it either and turfed it to a specialist. It doesn’t make me feel smarter, just less dumb.

Herewith are three cases of Iatrogenic medicine. Fortunately none of them were committed by EMS practitioners.

DOCTOR CUT OUT THE HEALTHY PART OF MY HUSBAND’S BRAIN

A FORMER paramedic had the wrong part of his brain removed by a bungling NHS surgeon during an operation he didn’t even need.

Not only did they remove the wrong part of his brain, he didn’t need the operation in the first place. Speaking as a paramedic myself, I know that I don’t have enough brain that I can spare any in a needless operation.

Richard Kennedy, chief medical officer, said: “I very much regret the tragic outcome for Mr Tunney and his family and on behalf of the trust would like to ­apologise.

“Since 2008, this case has been thoroughly reviewed through our governance process and I am confident that measures have been put in place to prevent this type of incident reoccurring.

“For example, we now collaborate with expert clinicians at other trusts in these kinds of cases.”

So, they need to consult experts at other hospitals before they open up a patient’s skull and start hacking out parts of their brains. I wonder what the expert clinicians tell them other than to hack out the right part of the brain and to make sure that said part needs hacking out before commencing. Obviously the folks at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust are no brain surgeons. I’m not making light of this because Mr. Tunney is now permanently and severely disabled. Iatrongenic medicine at it’s finest.

Hospital Admits Mistake After Teen Left Paralyzed

A British teenager was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down after an epidural anesthetic was left in her spine for too long after a routine operation to remove a hospital has admitted.

Sophie Tyler, 17, from Newport, South Wales, was 14 when staff at Birmingham Children’s Hospital left the painkiller in her back for two days, Sky News reported Wednesday.

You’d think that they’d notice that, especially after she started to have signs and symptoms and while just maybe it was early enough to do something to stop the damage. But no, they didn’t. Maybe they didn’t want to interrupt their afternoon tea or something. Rank incompetence.

Both of these cases are from Once Great Britain and it’s tempting to blame their national health care system, but the truth is it happens here too.

Parents get $7m in death of infant

A Suffolk County Superior Court jury awarded a South Hamilton couple a judgment of $7 million yesterday in the 2004 death of their newborn daughter at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, according to their attorney.

Jurors found Dr. Janet Lloyd and nurse practitioner Michele Ambrosino negligent in the care of Katherine Bellerose, who was born about two months early at the hospital on June 13, 2004, and developed a condition that caused her intestinal tissue to die.

Once again a preventable death if only someone had paid a bit closer attention to the patient and the family’s concern.

And they tell me that guns are dangerous.