Critical thinking

I was just looking at another blog that was taliking about a jury of your peers and I wondered how that system would work in medicine. That is if the peers were the same ones that were used in a trial. I think that it would go something like this.

ER, this is Metro ACLS rig 5 minutes inbound with 54y/o female, unconscious with pulse 140, bp 60 palp attempting to intubate, found down no history.

Quick, get our jury pool. Exclude anyone in medicine or a technical field. Get rid of anyone with education higher than 5th grade and be sure that it is ethnically diverse, wait, what is the race of the patient? Get rid of the guy with the short hair, just because. Oh, be sure that there are more mothers as they will be more sympathetic.

Patient rolls in the ER, EMTs can't intubate, sats 60%. Get the opposing medical counsel. Line up the expert witnessess. Schedule the trial date to determine what to do. We have to get the jury to tell us what to do. This is important and we got a jury of our peers!

Oh, never mind, the patient didn't make it.

Personally, when I hit the ER, I wan't a group of ER docs that take care of me. Educated docs who have experience and know all they an about what is going on.

Our tort system needs work. In the meantime, important decisions are being made by "peers" in whom the educated, experienced are excluded and opposing attorneys choose those jorors that the feel will be the most easily influenced.