Wednesday, March 30, 2005

A reason to suspect "medical miracles"

"Even doctors and nurses who ordinarily disdain religion often call cases like Jack's "miracles". Of course, for many in healthcare, it's easier to believe in miracles than to accept that they were wrong and a life could have been unnecessarily or prematurely lost." -Nancy Valko, Futility Policies and the Duty to Die


How many cases of medical error or ineptitude have been papered over by declarations of miraculous recovery, with the rejoicing family and patient too happy to question the competence of their doctors?

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