Army’s Aggressive Surgeon Is Too Aggressive for Some

NY Times ^ | November 6, 2007 | ALEX BERENSON

[Ramius]

Curious that the Times would need to treat this as some ethics issue.

How else can new ideas in trauma care be tested other than by eventually trying a new technique in the field? It’s trauma care. It’s not like you can bring people in off the street to run a study.

Seems to me that field surgeons in combat zones have to make dozens of rapid-fire decisions every hour that affect the life and limb of a person who’s unable to give consent for anything, let alone whether to try a new idea.

If in the Doctor’s expert opinion, some new treatment presents the best hope for a patient, wouldn’t it also be possible to argue that it is unethical to *not* try it?

I’d say that was “expertise” is all about. Yah, it’s guesswork sometimes. But if it were me, I’d rather have this guy’s guesses on how to fix me if I’m all shot up.

[El Gato]

Seems to me that field surgeons in combat zones have to make dozens of rapid-fire decisions every hour that affect the life and limb of a person who’s unable to give consent for anything, let alone whether to try a new idea.

Of course they do. However Brooke AMC (BAMC, BAM-CEE in local parlance) is one member of San Antonio 's triad of level 1 trauma centers that includes University of Texas/San Antonio Medical Center and Wilford Hall Medical Center(USAF). Civilians get choppered, or taken by ambulance, in there after traffic accidents, gun fights, knife fights, etc, etc.

Military wounded have given "implied consent", but the civilians haven't.

Still they are darned lucky if they get taken to BAMC or Wilford Hall. The gang bangers provide practice for military trauma docs, probably the only useful thing many of them ever do.

Under the 2005 BRAC, Brooke and Wilford Hall will be combined into a joint service San Antonio Military Medical Center (more here)