On 24 Oct. 2010, in the UK, a terrible fact came to light that an agency nurse, Violetta Aylward, switched off her patient’s ventilator by mistake. The patient’s name is Jamie Merret. He had been nursed at home since 2002 after a road accident which led him paralyzed and disabled. Owing to her mistake that she turned off the switch, he had a serious brain damage. The result was that he became weaker than what he had been before and he became unable to speak highly. Why this terrible incident happened? The reason is that the agency, which supplied the nurse, neglected to check the skills of the nurses and they didn’t keep their staff under perfect control. The nurse refrains from telling about this incident and an internal investigation of this incident is still under way, so we cannot know the details clearly, but I imagine she didn’t have much knowledge how to use the equipment and also the agency did not train their nurses sufficiently and have a system to check their skills what they can do and can’t do. My opinion is that they have to reconsider their system and also we have to reconsider our medical system, especially concerning a malpractice.
When I read this news, I remembered other malpractices happened in Japan. There were a lot of malpractices in Japan, but most of them were concealed. For example, one senior doctor performed many operations on cardiovascular for many years. However, his specialty was actually not on cardiovascular, so he made a lot of mistakes on his operations, but he didn’t disclose the facts. In addition, their colleagues protected him too because he was senior and had a power. This example is very typical of Japan. We have many similar cases like this. So, it’s my opinion that there are two big problems in those cases of Japan. First, there is an authoritarian system. Many doctors connect with each other and obey the more powerful doctors. This structure disturbs some doctors’ opinions and thoughts. And also thanks for this structure, many facts are concealed and we can’t tell the truth. Second, there is a problem concerning Japanese medical education. In the US, the difference between a medical license as a legal qualification to conduct medical treatments and a medical specialist license as a license of a faculty to conduct specialized medical treatment is very clear. On the other hand, in Japan, a doctor could get both qualifications only with a medical license, because doctors were not required of a qualification of a medical specialist so much.
However, to enrich the system of a medical specialist will be able to develop doctors’ clinical faculties and define where the responsibility is. These are big two problems in Japan, which lead to some malpractices. So, in order to prevent malpractices we have to remove the authoritarian system and to promote the system of a medical specialist. I mean that in order to improve something, we have to change the existing systems or structures. As for this incident in the UK, I can say the same thing. Of course the mistake was induced by the nurse, but there was a fundamental problem in the system of the agency. So, I believe that improving the system and changing the structure would decrease the number of problems such as malpractice.
