Support the Troops, Feres Doctrine Style 0
Military personnel have no protection from medical “errors.” Follow the link for full details:
Then, during frantic efforts to repair the damage, two surgical sponges were left in Wilson’s abdomen. Twelve hours after giving birth, she was dead.
In civilian surgeries, the doctors and nurses routinely count sponges. Indeed, they count everything.
Leaving a sponge or a piece of apparatus in a patient is ipso facto evidence of error, if not malpractice. Penalities attach; a doctor or nurse could easily lose his or her license, even if no legal action takes place.
Because of the Feres Doctrine, no such accountability attaches itself to military medical staff.
Whereas some of the aspects of the Feres Doctrine may make sense in the fog of war or on the field of combat, it does seem a stretch for it to apply to a routine obstetrical delivery at a stateside hospital.
