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Code of Silence

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Re “Medicine’s Fatal Code of Silence,” Aug. 24: Not only does it seem that the anesthesiologist is criminally negligent, but every member of the operating room team should share responsibility for 8-year-old Richard Leonard’s death.

Twenty years ago I worked in a surgical intensive care unit for burn victims. We had a standard set of procedures that everyone had to follow, from the chief of plastic surgery to the lowliest technician. Each burn team member took personal responsibility for assessing the care and the changing status of each patient.

Standard procedures ought to be published, checked and rechecked out loud and regularly. No one’s personality or bad day should ever jeopardize the safety or health of any patient.

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TIM REGAN

Los Angeles

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The article strikes an all too familiar chord--the lack of moral responsibility, not only in the medical community, but in the human community. It is the same lack of moral obligation in a society where people stand around and witnesses a woman being beaten and then plunging to her death off a bridge in Detroit.

The Leonard family, due to their actions, were victorious in getting the doctor’s license revoked. However, those who worked beside Joseph Verbrugge in Operating Room 7 should also be held to the same level of accountability due to their lack of intervention well before the unconscionable events that took an innocent boy’s life.

VICKI L. GLICHER

Northridge

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As an experienced OR nurse and supervisor I can assure you this is not an unusual set of circumstances.

My 20-plus years were filled with frustration in attempting to protect the patient from just such incidents. Documentation of and reporting of incidents such as ghost surgery, incompetent physicians, falsification of charts were to no avail. The only recourse I as supervisor had was to remove my nurses from a room so the surgery could not take place or develop a unique charting method that could be used in court. Sad but true.

RUTH I. HARMON

Santa Ana

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