Posted on 05/15/2012 2:22:23 PM PDT by Red Badger
A 15-year-old schoolgirl died of tuberculosis after her bungling GP claimed she was 'lovesick', an inquest heard.
Alina Sarag was seen by more than five doctors at four different hospitals but medics failed to detect the curable disease.
Her distraught parents even called her GP more than 50 times about their daughter's ailing condition over a four-and-a-half month period before her death on January 6 last year.
An inquest heard that her GP, Dr Sharad Shripadrao Pandit, accused her parents of "mollycoddling" her.
Shockingly, he even claimed her symptoms were brought on because she was 'lovesick'.
Her distraught father, Sultan Sarag, 43, broke down as he told Birmingham Coroner's Court: "The doctor said to her 'Did you meet someone on holiday? Are you missing him?'
"She found it very distressing he was suggesting she was lovesick for a boy.
"He said all the problems were in her head and she should see a psychiatrist or spiritual healer.
"When he said that in front of her it totally broke her heart.
"He said she was only doing it to keep me at the house nursing her.
"He [Dr Pandit] said 'It is because of you that she is making it up'.
"He said when she was younger my attitude had a detrimental effect on her.
"I was running around looking after her, nursing her.
"He said 'She's only doing that to keep you in the house so you don't go from there'.
"That's what his explanation was."
Mr Sarag also claimed Dr Pandit refused to test his daughter for TB.
He told the inquest: "He said, 'We don't need these tests, we are not going to get them done either.'
"As you tried to progress he just totally changed the subject."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
No, but it could have led to a correct diagnosis. Antibiotics will clear it up.
"He said all the problems were in her head and she should see a psychiatrist or spiritual healer.
That is a universal medical punt. When they don't know, doctors seem to either blame the patient ("your imagination", "psychosomatic", 'Delusional Parasitosis", Etc.
A good doctor will admit they don't know and refer the person to a specialist or another doctor.
One you should part ways with will blame you.
I have one of the best oncologists in the country and he is Indian. I
love him to death because he saved my life! He is the nicet and most caring doctor I have ever known and I know A LOT of them.
Where I live, there was a huge influx of Indians in the mid 70s. They did not adopt easily to American customs - like the customer always being right, etc. or not pushing on trains going into Manhattan, lol. Many of the pharmacists are downright reluctant to hand over drugs purchased through doctor’s prescriptions. Weirdly suspicious! And God forbid you are ONE penny short of paying for something. And I don’t think Indian doctors are very good with women patients.
That is simply my un-pc opinion. But as you can see, there is already one American here who is sticking up for Indian doctors. We don’t all think the same way on this subject.
I’ve never met a doctor in America who blamed the patient. That’s generally because if they sluff off the patient, they may end up in court.
I have a relative who I believe has Munchhausen Syndrome. If one doctor over 30-40 years had told her “it was all in her head,” my family would have been relieved of a lot of stress. But our doctors are afraid of confronting neurotic people.
actually, it is quite easy to miss TB, especially if it is a “primary” infection, which develops before the Body’s immune system kicks in (for TB this takes a few weeks)...
In primary TB, you develop a fuzzy pneumonia and a pleural effusion and then the TB can spread all over the body. I’ve seen (and missed) one case (who eventually got diagnosed by someone else when the “pneumonia” didn’t go away and she was referred to a specialist).
The problem is that the skin test for TB is negative in these primary cases, and since we rarely see TB in the US, you just don’t think of it.
What is typically seen in TB cases occurs after the body’s immune system gets going and “walls off” the TB infection, to stop the germ from spreading. Then you see thick walled abcesses in the upper lungs on x rays. Again, it’s a hard area to see on routine x rays but can be seen easily with a more expensive CT scan.
This can be missed, usually in someone who has TB scars from the past, but it is a “slow” disease. Often if we see pneumonia or old tB on X ray, and the person is coughing but not too sick, we usually just order sputums “just in case” and boy, do the nurses and family get upset when the sputums come back positive in six weeks, and they all need to be checked that they didn’t catch TB....
The only reason I am surprised the Tb was missed is that she is Asian, a high risk group, and her doc has a foreign name, probably from India, so he too should have seen cases and recognized. it.
But if it was a case of “primary” TB, he might have thought it was something else.
A doc trained in the US would probably miss it....
see my note...if it was primary TB, which spreads through the body quickly because you don’t have a good immune system to wall off the infection, the skin test is negative and the X ray is not typical for Tb.
Repeat after me: Diversity is our strength.
I want an Anglo doctor the same way a Muzzie wants Omar to handle his junk, not Steve.
I also want an Asian masseuse, an Irish bartender and a black jazz musician.
Anergy is like that...
But not doing it, in this situation, is negligent
TB can still be present, with a (-) TB skin test,
in immunocompromised patients
This highlights many things.
First, of course, the socialist system in UK sucks.
Second, when you drive your country’s doctors out of business, guess who migrates to your country to fill the void?
Third, the migrant-doctors don’t give a crap about women.
If this is the kind of medical care we can expect from Obamacare in the very near future, I expect there will be a lot of dead doctors around the country. We have guns. The UK doesn’t...........
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH, ...
Yes. I drive 75 miles, and I’m alive. The poor girl forming the subject of this story is not.
Jeez Jock,don’t get your sporran in a wad,lighten up there boy!!!
India and their paper factories. They churn out PhD’s like there is no tomorrow. And cheating is A-OK.
When I have a choice, I look for referrals from friends, but I choose older white males, preferably Jews or ex-military. Consider it my protest against the evil racism of Affirmative Action.
As a native New Yorker, I always look for male, Jewish doctors. Some of the young ones are great, by the way.
Yes, I should have said Jewish.
when we worked in Africa, all kids got BCg so had a mildly positive test. A negative test meant anergy.
The question is if she ever had BCG...
and the article is unclear if she was a case of primary or secondary tb...in primary TB it spreads before the skin test turns positive, in secondary TB, it is usually positive but can be negative from anergy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.