Some things are just ugly. They need to STAY ugly. It keeps us honest.
Those were my thoughts last July in a post as the North Carolina Medical Board ruminated its position on physicians being present at executions. Back in the day, MeBlogin and I weren't exactly getting along (I think as relative newbies we were just misunderstanding one another). But we're blog-buddies now (again, what I think:).
Tonight, WFMY-TV reported tonight that the Medical Board (in a unanimous decision with no public debate) approved a policy that complies with North Carolina law (that requires a doctor to be present at an execution), yet flies in the face of the American Medical Association's ironclad position on the subject . . . which regards a physician even attending or observing an execution as a breach of ethics.
The headlines (no doubt guided by the spin of press releases) all boldly proclaimed "North Carolina Bars Doctors From Executions". But it ain't necessarily so. The fact IS that doctors are STILL required BY NC LAW to be present. They just cannot do anything than might be construed as active participation. The Medical Board's "decision" today simply means that a doctor will not be disciplined by the Board for being present. News reports called it "symbolic".
Allow me to be blunt. This "decision" is not a decision at all. What it symbolizes is a mealy-mouthed compromise to appease (most of) the lawyers and ALL of the politicians who passed a bad law requiring a physician to attend state-sanctioned killing. It doesn't require any legislative muscle, and it is the coward's way out.
It's also cannon fodder for those who oppose the death penalty. In this instance, allow me to help load the cannon.
The Board says the physician's role would be to decrease suffering . . . as an example, to treat the condemned prisoner's nausea or an anxiety attack before the execution. On the other hand, the doctor cannot observe a brain moniter to confirm level of consciousness or death (this debate started when lawyers for a death-row inmate petitioned for an anesthesiologist to attend the prisoner - the argument being that a specialist was the only doctor qualified to confirm unconsciousness before paralysis) . . . or adjust/repair a non-working IV (ala the case in December that got executions banned in Florida).
It seems the sole purpose of North Carolina's law (with which the Medical Board is just going along to get along) is to function as a bad legal dodge to ward off the "cruel and unusual" argument . . . to say to the condemned and his/her defense team, "We have a doctor in the room, what more do you want?".
But if the purpose of putting a North Carolina doctor in the chamber is to prevent "cruel and unusual/inhumane" punishment (by correcting problems in the process. . . like an improperly placed IV . . . or giving additional medication to a prisoner who winds up awake but paralyzed in the moments before death), I just don't get it.
Why have the doctor there if he/she cannot lift a finger to prevent that kind of suffering?
As a physician, the Medical Board's position seems to me to be nonsensical. I think the North Carolina state legislature should change the law and take doctors out of the equation completely . . . furthermore, I think the Medical Board should grow a backbone and ask them to do it.
As I said last July, while I am an "Old-Testament" eye-for-an-eye girl when it comes to the dealth penalty, for too long lawmakers have white-washed what is going on. The state is taking a life. But hey, let's have a doctor there who can do nothing just so it will look pretty.
As I noted in the comments section of my original post, the Medical Board is an institution that traditionally does not find itself or its methods/actions questioned by the general public. And doctors don’t dare (most doctors anyway:).
Politicians (fending off lawyers dreaming up exotic reasons to attack the death penalty) threw “first do no harm” out the window and popped a law into place that put physicians in the middle. Like Jim Black’s eye exam law for kindergarteners (recently diluted and passed to save Mr. Black some face), putting a physician in an execution chamber was not vetted by physicians. The question also begs, where were “the honorables” of the North Carolina Medical Board BEFORE this law was passed?
News reports tonight said that the Medical Board waited to make a decision until physicians had an opportunity to comment on a proposed "position statement" published in its last quarterly "Forum" (see the fine print of page 10).
I wonder how many physicians were brave enough to offer commentary? Or really cared?
At any rate, a bad North Carolina law has now been indirectly "vetted" by the North Carolina Medical Board. After the fact.
It remains to be seen if straddling that fence will be painful for them . . . for us.
Editor's note: Blogspot has been hicupping all night. My eyeballs are killing me. I apologize to anyone who may have been reading during the battle to get this one up corrected and intact.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
....yep...I consider you to be a friend and a person that deserves to see justice for those that perjured themselves. :-) What I missed early on was your level of passion and several years of pursuit which directly impacts your technique when conversing. I believe that Ed, JR and some others are challenged not by your "rights to see justice" but by the technique used. I believe that similar to myself that one day "your story" for them will be the very technique chosen of a 100% pursuit to be heard. All it takes is one person in the right postion that can make a difference to offer. I am a little surprised that it has not already happened. I would hope that the lawyers reading could help....maybe not.
If I am not making any sense...that is ok...grin. I belive that you are a person that has been wronged and deserving of seeing a wrong corrected. The press is secondary..finding a champion that can influence the DA is needed.
You chose the right path which was to save the life and expose the wrongdoing and I am proud to call you friend.
back to death penalty--- I support the death penalty and use Saddam as an example. With regard to a Doc being present...don't really care or see the need. If there is a Doc comfortable doing the job...great. If all the Docs said no then the problem would resolve itself.
JR and Ed INVITED me/you to this venue. They treated me despicably (for taking them at their word) and now pretty much turn up their more important noses.
If you have not noticed, Ed no longer links my blog (it took several nasty rounds a while back to get him to do it - JR too). At this point, it's not about the quality of my writing or the subjects I talk about (most of which have some bearing on the legal & journalistic cluster-screw I've endured). It's because I disagree and challenge his positions on a number of subjects . . . or push him to take/expand one when he's sitting on the fence just blurbing/snarking. As much as Ed says he wants to be challenged . . . to hear an opposing viewpoint, he doesn't really. Even though I disagree with most of what comes out of his keyboard, I had him on my link list for a long time before he acknowleged my existance on his . . . in deference to "WHO" he is in the GSO blogosphere.
No more.
As a matter of update, I'm still waiting on the Randolph County Clerk of Court to get back to me about how and where to present to file an affidavit requesting that Garland Yates be removed from office.
My (very complicated, yet ironically simple now) case should have been referred to the AG/SBI for a proper and thorough investigation over three years ago . . . when it was first reported to Garland Yates. Instead of a fair shake, what I got was subterfuge and a tilting of the scales. It is ALL about pandering to the powers-that-be.
As I read a law passed last year, the Medical Board can now request an investigation. They've known from almost "the beginning" that I got hosed. The excuse for not doing anything (to defend the duties they require) was that they did not have the jurisdiction (over hospital executives) to do so. Well, now they do. They have the evidence right under their noses, and perjury does not have a statue of limitations.
But the last time I asked the Board's Chief legal eagle (Thomas Mansfield) for a moment of his time to discuss the matter, he refused. That conversation was tied to another iatrogenic nursery disaster I rescued (the worst I've ever seen). And I am the ONE PERSON in that case the Board should talk to. But they shuffle the papers (usually burying matter) and move on.
Just like Garland Yates (who has NEVER deemed it necessary to speak to me) . . . just like Nifong refusing to meet with the lawyers for the Duke Three.
It is arrogance in the extreme.
You hit the nail on the head. There is no need to put a doctor in the middle of the ugly business of an execution if the doctor is not allowed to do anything to alieviate the suffering that the procedure may induce. It's nonsensical. The Medical Board got involved in this case because doctors who participate (afraid they might get zapped by the Board for complying with state law) asked for "guidance".
But this is not really guidance. It's a total cop-out by those who are supposed to be leaders in our profession and lead the ethical way.
Of course, I'm living proof that THAT is a lost cause.
Post a Comment