Posted on 05/28/2007 9:33:12 AM PDT by wagglebee
The Christian attorney who fought to keep Terry Schiavo alive says the three leading GOP presidential candidates don't understand the important disability issues involved in the widely publicized 2005 case.
During a recent Republican presidential debate in California, the candidates were asked whether Congress was right to intervene in the Terry Schiavo case by attempting to prevent the state of Florida from removing the disabled woman's feeding tube. The answers varied.
Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, said he thought it "was a mistake" for Congress to get involved and the matter should have been left at the state level. Senator John McCain said Congress "probably acted too hastily." And former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani called the case a "family dispute."
David Gibbs III of the Christian Law Association says the United States gives greater due process to convicted murderers than to innocent disabled people. The former attorney for Schiavo's parents argues that Congress did the right thing when it intervened to provide her those rights.
"Many of the candidates are following the political wind, if you will, instead of showing leadership and saying, 'You know what? That was good public policy back then. We need to stand up for the disabled. We need to stand up for the senior citizens,'" Gibbs says. "We need to have that compassion for vulnerable people as opposed to taking the mindset that those people that just don't matter," he notes.
It is disingenuous, the Christian attorney contends, for candidates to claim they are pro-life but not be willing to grant due process rights to the disabled. "If you're pro-life, you have to be pro-life at every step," he says.
"Please understand: our founding fathers understood that you don't have any liberty, our Constitution doesn't matter, if you don't protect the innocent life of the citizens," Gibbs explains. "That's why they talked about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- your free speech, your freedom of religion, your right to own a gun or [receive] due process of law," he says. "If the government can kill you, you have no true liberty."
When Rudy Giuliani visited Florida he initially said he was in favor of assisting Terry Schiavo but later backpedaled from those comments, Gibbs points out. And in the recent GOP presidential debate, he says, only Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and Congressman Duncan Hunter of California got the issue right when they were asked about the Schiavo case.
The Schindlers, who grasped at every straw did not make this an issue, what is your problem.
Anyway, I was glad cite a few sources. There were a ton, but I thought it better not to go for overkill! :)
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Tape Released Showing Teen Beaten At Boot Camp; Video Shows Guards Restraining, Punching Boy
WPBFNews.com, February 17, 2006
http://www.nospank.net/n-p64r.htm
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DJJ medical chief: Autopsy procedure was unusual
February 24, 2006
"And while some sickle cell experts were calling Siebert’s report impossible, Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Dr. Jon Thogmartin told the Times that Anderson’s death was a “remarkable” example of death due to sickle cell trait."
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May 5, 2006
2nd Autopsy: Guards Suffocated Boy At Boot Camp
(AP) TAMPA, Fla.
" A 14-year-old boy kicked and punched by guards at a juvenile boot camp died because the sheriff's officials suffocated him, a medical examiner said Friday, contradicting a colleague who blamed the death on a usually benign blood disorder..... His family had questioned the initial finding by Dr. Charles Siebert, the Bay County Medical Examiner, that the boy died of complications of sickle cell trait.
By the way, I tried your link for Stedman's and got a search engine. So, I searched for "oriented," and got this message:
"Sorry, but the Stedman's Online Medical Dictionary doesn't recognize this term."
Hahahahahaha!
Wasn't there an endplate fracture at T11? Look on Page 3, under "radiographs." Just in the interests of complete medical accuracy, mind.
Ok, terminology disconnect. That is a type of compression fracture. We're both saying the same thing.
Behavenet: "subject correctly identifies familiar individuals, and provides the correct time and date, place, and geographical location."
CancerWeb: "Awareness of one's environment, with reference to person, time and place."
Medical dictionary Online: "Awareness of oneself in relation to time, place and person."
Free dictionary: awareness of one's environment with reference to time, place, and people.
About.com: ORIENTATION - The health care provider will ask questions that may include: * The time, date, and season * The place where the person lives, type of building, city and state * The person's name, age, and occupation
(this is much more detailed than most would require to call someone "oriented," but exact same idea: person, place, time.)
Stedman's has it under orientation "The recognition of one's temporal, spatial, and personal relationships and environment."
And just in case you feel these aren't sufficiently related to nursing, here are the ones I found for you yesterday:
Taking Vital Signs (basic patient evaluation): "Signifies orientation to person, place, time, and event. "
RN.com's Assessment series: ' Orientation with reference to time, place, and person."
RNcentral.com: "Orient to person, place, and time"
So in what way were these "all different"? All seem to say the same thing - ability to identify person, place and time.
> I challenge you to talk to any nurse or doctor who deals with patients and ask them what it means if a patient is "oriented".
Try kozokey's links in #1595 and see if you can find two MEDICAL DICTIONARIES that are in perfect agreement on what "oriented" means. My reply is a burst of laughter in #1604.
But my criticism was that you were hugely exaggerating what conclusions can reasonably drawn from the alleged misuse of one word. Earlier, I called you for misusing one word, "x-rays," which implied far more thorough ER exam than Terri actually got. Take a teaspoon of your own logic, doc. Your misuse of that word means you are clearly a sloppy medical researcher or a terrible liar -- i.e., the ridiculous things you call Carla Iyer.
Here. Have another spoonful of your either grossly sloppy or meretricious language. You made this statement in #1506:
> Based on what was filled in by the clerk "history of head trauma," Dr. Walker believed there was a history of trauma...
In the interests of accurate medical information, I have to tell you that that was an incorrect quotation. What it said on the bone scan was, "The patient has a history of trauma." Which, btw, also means that, along with Dr. Walker, at least one of the requesting doctors thought the patient had suffered trauma, right? It wasn't just a clerk typing this in, right?
Very sloppy or you, sir, saying "head trauma," and in quotation marks, too. Even sloppier conclusion on your part, that Dr. Walker was led to his findings by what was typed on the report. If you use even one word wrong this way, you are either incompetent or a liar. Or so you said repeatedly about Carla Iyer.
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
OK, then you were wrong saying "a" compression fracture. There were two compression fractures. Right?
> Actually, Dr. Walker disagreed with you about that in his testimony:
No he didn't. He just said it was possible. It still isn't associated with CPR. In children, posterior rib fracture caused by CPR has "never been documented in the scientific literature." And, yes, it's highly specific for abuse. Even in adults it is unusual and must be regarded as suspicious. You gave a solid reason for this. "I actually think resuscitation in an adult would be more likely to break ribs anteriorly or laterally, not posteriorly, not at the costovertebral junction." Much more likely! (Dr. Walker would agree, yes?) Therefore, we look for causes other than CPR.
You are leaving important parts of these definitions out, such as the references to psychiatry and psychology. That’s not kosher in this discussion.
Every so often I take a slightly cynical view of autopsies in Florida. Even the videotape of the deputies beating that kid wasn’t enough for this idiot.
Talk to any nurse, doctor, paramedic or EMT. This is standard stuff, used all over the country, (and Canada, and probably most other countries as well.) It is basic patient assessment. Most medical facilties that have an admitting form will have a place for orientation. Ambulance forms have a place for orientation.
You are arguing there is uniform usage throughout the medical profession, but can barely come up with two sources with identical definitions of the term. Language is far too subtle and nuanced for your conclusions, far too dynamic, far too contextual, far too idiosyncratic. You will never find robotic conformity to a speech code in any profession or community.
Not quite. Dr. Walker's report said "The patient has a history of trauma" which is what he believed based on what he was given, according to his testimony.
Now, in that top block there, it says, "closed head injury." Do you see that?According to the autopsy report, Dr. Carnahan had asked for the bone scan to "evaluate for trauma" because:
A Yes, I do.
Q Where would that information have come from?
A Typically the clerk, the intake clerk, puts that information there.
The medical records from that facility [earlier identified as Mediplex] clearly indicate that in February 1991 she was experiencing redness and swelling in her knees. During her Mediplex admission (February 5, 1991) in response to this new knee swelling and redness, radiographs were taken that showed severe osteopenia and degenerative changes but no fractures. Her physicians ordered a bone scan to rule out heterotrophic ossification (H.O.) infection, or trauma.Which tells us that the rehab docs were concerned about very recent trauma. When a patient has osteopenia/osteoporosis, it can be very difficult to see a fracture, and a bone scan can help.
Earlier, I called you for misusing one word, "x-rays," which implied far more thorough ER exam than Terri actually got.
From Dr. CBB
2/25/1990 X-Ray Report Dr. HameroffI will grant you that one study can consist of several images. The typical C-spine series is 3 or 5 films. It has not been the usual practice for many years (at a guess, the mid eighties) to take only a lateral C-spine.
Images [emphasis added] taken of cervical spine, no acute bony pathology - straightening of normal cervical lordosis".
But my criticism was that you were hugely exaggerating what conclusions can reasonably drawn from the alleged misuse of one word.
A lot depends on the word and what it means. If your doctor tells you that you have cancer, when in fact you don't, omitting the word "don't" is a big deal. In this case, by saying the patient was "alert and oriented" Carla Iyer is claiming something that clearly isn't the case. If she correct a temporary slip of the tongue, fine, link to it. But if not, she made the same type of gross misstatement as if she had declared vital signs "normal" on a patient for whom that was far from the truth. It means she either doesn't understand basic nursing, or is fabricating.
Sun referred to the autopsy report. According to the autopsy report, there was only the one.
I hate to break this to you, but a nursing assessment does involve the cardiac, respiratory, and neruo or psych-social among other things. Just as a routine physical exam by your doctor will involve several systems. This is standard assessment - ask a doctor, nurse, EMT or Paramedic. It would be done on admission to any ER, any hospital, for any ambulance ride. For a convalescent hospital where many patients would not be oriented, this is bread and butter, routine exam. Carla Iyer could not work in a nursing capacity in a convalescent hospital without knowing what this means.
Every sample I posted said the same thing - that a patient is oriented if they know person, place and time. Otherwise they are not oriented. This is standard stuff, used all over the country. I fear you are making yourself look silly arguing about this, as any nurse or doctor will tell you what the medical meaning of "oriented" is. Is there a doc on Free Republic you trust? Ping them to the thread and ask.
By "observers", you refer to other forensic pathologists, of course.
Considering the highly publized and controversial nature of this case, the wiser decision would have been to welcome a colleague with expertise in the field, IMO. Instead, the autopsy results/opinions join the list of other questionable occurrences before, and after, Terri's death was decreed by Judge Greer.
As to the accuracy of her diagnosis, I found the following article to be interesting.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- September 01, 2006 Clinical Management of Impaired Consciousness in Wake of Schiavo Case
I haven't figured out whether that should call for a party or a hanging! Why not both?
Really...I can't in good conscience say "I know" he is responsible for the condition she suffered. I'd like to hear from the Schindlers that he did everything possible to rehabilite her in the earlier years. Maybe he did, but at some point, it appears to me that he was a lying, evil person, one who "killed" his conscience...who knows when. I don't expect a confession.
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