"Anaesthetised patients 'routinely abused during
   medical training'" 

   Routine abuse of patients during the training of medical
   students has been exposed by a survey that found
   patients were subjected to unpleasant examinations and
   unnecessary procedures without their consent. 

   Internal examinations of the vagina and rectum were
   made on anaesthetised patients without their knowledge,
   and patients were subjected to medical procedures
   "solely for educational...reasons", the survey reports.

   In one case, a student was invited to practise a "femoral
   stab" in which a catheter is inserted into the femoral
   artery, on a terminally ill patient near death. Because
   the patient was in a vegetative state (awake but not
   responding), he was not in a position to give consent - 
   nor to resist, object or complain. 

   Nearly half of the 100 medical students in the survey
   said they often felt under pressure to act unethically
   during their training and almost two-thirds said they
   regularly witnessed a teacher behaving unethically. 

   In a separate article in the journal, two British doctors
   and a researcher from Oxford say the practice of
   performing internal examinations on anaesthetised
   patients without consent continues, even though it has
   been condemned. 

   After the Alder Hey organ scandal and the Bristol baby
   deaths, both of which revolved around informed
   consent, the authors warn that if the practice of training
   students on unconscious patients becomes widely
   known, trust in doctors will be further undermined. "The
   medical profession urgently needs to learn respect for
   the living and for the dead," they say.

   From "The Independent" an English broadsheet
   By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor 
   23 March 2001

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   "Perceptions" note:

   So much for "professionalism" quoted at
   http://www.perceptions.couk.com/authority2.html

   Evidence page for the "Altruist Survivor" 
   http://www.perceptions.couk.com/genes5.html 

   and for 
   http://www.perceptions.couk.com/medical.html

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              FURTHER REFERENCES

  GO - "search perceptions" - in SEARCH-ENGINE


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