Duties Not Protected Or Defended, Part 2

More from the News & Observer on the clash of medical "ethics" and state law that puts a physician in the execution chamber unable to do anything about anything.

Death penalty opponents are having a field day.

"North Carolina joins a growing list of states finally coming to grips with the fact that lethal injection is symbolic of the lack of accountability and incompetence that plagues the death penalty system," said David Elliot, a spokesman for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Try symbolic of the lack of accountability and incompetence that plagues the administration of healthcare PERIOD in this state and I'm with you.

California and Florida are among the states that have halted executions over the issue of whether drugs are administered in a way that does not cause condemned inmates to suffer. Lethal injection, as I understand it, is basically a variation of rapid-sequence intubation without the pre-oxygentation/intubation/venitlatory support . . . and with a potassium chaser. As simple and "clean" as it seems, glitches happen. IV's can be improperly placed. Sedation can fail (leaving the "patient" paralyzed and awake as he/she dies).

The judge who issued the ruling that stopped the executions said he was "grappling with a moral and legal question: "Whether or not this state wants to execute a person without the presence of a supervising physician."

I'm still trying to wrap my head around that statement. The state is KILLING someone. You need a physician (whose FIRST duty is to "DO NO HARM") to supervise?

Sure, says the Medical Board. The doctor can "supervise" from another room while "lowly" paramedics and RN's just follow their orders and do the dirty work. I guess they don't have ethical cannons.

The judge apparently creatively interpreted a 1909 law in order to turf this very hot potato back to the Governor & Council of State. Now, the Secretaries of Agriculture & Insurance could be in on the decision that puts THE needle in someone's arm.

Probably more than they bargained for. Just like the doctors who, when they graduated from medical school and took that Oath, never dreamed that one of their "duties" would be taking a life.