MDs admit mistake in treating Sharon

[CHIMO]

JERUSALEM — Doctors have admitted making a mistake when they treated then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with large doses of blood thinners after a mild stroke, according to a TV report broadcast Thursday.

Sharon has been comatose since suffering a massive stroke on Jan. 4. Channel 2 TV quoted doctors who treated Sharon at Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital as saying the anticoagulants given him after a minor blood clot two weeks earlier might have caused the debilitating hemorrhagic stroke.

The TV station broadcast brief excerpts of the investigative report on Thursday, promising fuller versions on Friday and again next week.

The hospital strongly denied the report. It said in a statement that the interpretation that doctors admitted a mistake was "in the imagination of the reporter."

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[Ilsa]

1. Is the use of anti-coagulants sometimes a crap-shoot?

I know there are protocols for everything, but this one? I haven't really followed the story of Sharon's recent medical progress and lack of it.

[Blackthorn]

2. He's already dead. n/t

This is just setting the record straight. He died from malpractice, right?

[LostinVA]

5. Why isn't lizzy as interested in Sharon as Terri Schiavo?

Just a random thought....

[MiniMe]

3. Probably a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation

Some people have good outcomes, others don't.

[knitter4democracy]

4. Every doctor second-guesses him/herself afterwards.

I know my hubby does. What if he had known more about the TIA earlier--was it a bleeder instead, was there another aneurysm just waiting to blow that they could've found if they'd taken more time to do more tests, what if they used a different drug regimen? They're just being good doctors in second-guessing themselves.