With so many problems from botched surgeries you would think a patient would be able to request this.
In: Technology
Unfortunately there is a tremendous amount of legally actionable oversight that occurs constantly in the medical care field. Not only will most surgeons refuse to be recorded but recording is banned in nearly all care facilities. The day we see doctors, nurses and aides wearing body cameras like police is still years away – despite how many people they probably kill.
Lawyers have already destroyed a lot of wealth and accomplishment in the world. The top surgeon would just sit down with lawyers and find ever mistake someone else did. Yah a few people would get “justice” and a pay out. Overall many more people will die and not get care, more money will be spent on courts and the whole process, for what real gain? For an extra grand you can get higher resolution.
Doctors can say that they couldn’t concentrate which is understandable. Tbh it would be hard to convince a car mechanic to record your car repair and I guess it would take far more with a team of surgeons. But some procedures are being recorded for educational purposes
Performing your job while being recorded (or watched over your shoulder) and your every movement potentially scrutinized is painfully hard, even as a software engineer where people expect me to make mistakes half the time. I can’t imagine how much worse it’d get for a surgeon.
ORs need to have as little external distractions as possible.
Imagine your self under anesthesia, chest open on the operating table, when your surgical team has just screwed up something.
Do you want their next thought to be: how do we fix this so the patient turns out ok? Or, do you want it to be: oh shoot we are going to get sued, what should we do next that puts us at least legal risk?
Some surgeons do film their surgeries. However, if they are not electing to film themselves, you do not want to put extra distractions or stress on them while your life depends on their 100% focus.
Every operating theatre in my local hospital has cameras. Because it is a teaching aid. Operations can be recorded or streamed as needed around the hospital and local Universities.
I remember sitting in the doctors mess in Ophthalmology discussing something with one of the senior consultants while on the wall opposite I could see an eye operation underway. I can watch just about anything except knee and eye operations. One of the weirdest meetings I have ever had.
Legal exposure is one of the big reasons. Ppl file lawsuits over the dumbest shit, so you better believe that some are gonna use the tape to try to sue a doctor. On top of that, it’s distracting, and when you are doing surgery, that is not a good thing. Its like having your boss watching you do your work. Sure, you can probably do the job, but its 10x more stressful.
In the US malpractice insurance is very expensive and anything that would increase a surgeon to additional legal risk is going to be resisted tooth and nail.
Another consideration is that there is a difference between doing a job correctly and doing a job correctly in a way that also looks correct on video. In order to minimize incision size it is common for the surgeon to be the only person who can see what is being done. Even head mounted cameras often don’t have the proper angle to record what is being done. Having a procedure performed in a way that made everything visible on video would require significant changes that are unlikely to improve the patient outcomes.
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There are people out there looking for any reason to sue and profit from others. This may not be the case for regular people but it does not benefit them much either. It would very likely make surgeons avoid risky surgeries like the plague hurting the people that need them.
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