I don't think I am but I'm willing to be corrected

[QueenOfCats]

If somebody knocked on your door at 9pm and said that someone was lying injured in the road a few houses down, would you say "sorry, I'm busy, call an ambulance" and close the door?

If you were a qualified doctor, would your answer be any different?

Agree with Jamie.

My God, if a child knocked on my door asking for assistance I would help without thinking and I am not medically trained at all. It's called humanity. How on earth can you just leave someone lying in the street, injured?

Sounds like she's in the wrong job or at least in it for the wrong reasons.

She should have helped. For all you saying she could probably do nothing until the ambulance came do you know how comforting the words "Don't worry I'm a Doctor" would have been?

lollilou

Too right. I had a car accident (unhurt, luckily) and the first person on the scene was a doctor and he shouted this through the window

I've never know any nurse/gp/medical person not help and I take 999 calls. Sometimes I've been amazed when there is something like a car crash and it turns out there is a doctor, surgeon and nurse that were all just passing by and stopped
I am defib and CPR trained and I would never not help (do get neighbours knocking occasionally)

I can only think what if that was a member of my family who was injured & a medically trained person didnt even bother to check out the situation.

Flogging - she doesn't drink for religious reasons

Queen, she may enjoy a glass or two of wine in the privacy of her own home, even if her religion says "no alcohol".

I can't believe that people are finding excuses for her not to at least run outside and assess the situation. If she was drunk, breastfeeding a baby, and supervising her mum (with Alzheimers) in the bathtub, she could have pulled the plug so the water would run out of the bath, and taken the baby outside with her. She could have explained that she couldn't perform an emergency tracheotomy because she was too drunk.

Apparently she doesn't have a baby and her religion doesn't allow alcohol (though I guess it allows a doctor to ignore someone having a medical crisis).

Btw, my GP husband has stopped several times at Rta, once helped a lady who collapsed in a supermarket... But has also refused to help where not appropriate, and usually those situations have occurred at home.

Helping in an emergency situation where you know it's not appropriate for you to do so ( and there could be many reasons why it's not appropriate but glass of wine with dinner would be an example), could mean not only a risk to the patient, but the end of that doctors career.

If a doctor "just runs out" and has a quick look, legally that injured person is then their patient.

in the community does not refer to being in your own home it means the train, supermarket, driving along a road, at church your local toddler group etc

a doctor would not be expected to leave their own toddler watching TV alone in the house while they attended something in the street,

UK medical insurance does not cover good samairtian acts in USA, canada or Israel and we were advised never ever to admit to having any medical knowledge in USA as you could be sued with no defence sad but true

Slightly off topic but a few years ago i was at a dinner party with friends of mine who are both surgeons. A fellow surgeon friend of theirs who specialised in reattaching limbs (sory, can't remember his proper title) was also a guest.

Just sat down to eat our first course when the surgeon guest received a call from the hospital. A man had had his hand chopped off, for some reason there was nobody around to reattach it and would he come into work to perform the operation. He said no, it was Saturday night and he was at a dinner, find somebody else.

Twenty minutes later the hospital called him again, there was nobody else and they needed him asap to reattach this man's hand. The operation was relatively easy as the hand had been removed by a machete and so wouldn't take too long. They would send a medical helicopter to pick him up. He STILL refused saying the guy was probably a criminal and he wasn't ruining his Saturday night dinner party to go back into work and reattach this man's hand.

I was shocked but the hosts, my friends who are both surgeons, fully agreed with this guy. Why should he give up his Saturday night, it isn't his fault that the hospital is understaffed and that this stupid criminal (an assumption) had had his hand chopped off.

I was utterly horrified. Totally compassionless.

A neighbour knocked on my door for help as her mum was having a suspected heart attack.
I'm a nurse, if I refuse to help I could be struck off the register AFAIK.
Would assume same goes for Doctors.

Even if I wasn't medically trained I would help if someone needed help, human nature I'd have thought.

Am highly amused that re attaching a hand is a simple operation
Ffs

I'm a GP. Would I have come to help? Yes. I have done so many times in similar situations and recently gave up an entire week of my holiday to evacuate a complete stranger who was injured while I was trekking in Nepal...

...but...

...doctors are NOT legally obliged to help in the UK. The link posted above is to a New Zealand site. The laws on this are different in every country. The GMC guidance does say that doctors should assist when they feel able to do so but, as others have noted, there may have been very valid reasons why this doctor felt unable to help. At a guess, I'd say the most likely reason is that she has helped in a similar situation before and had a problem. Doctors absolutely can be sued and receive complaints to the GMC for good Samaritan acts. The fact that indemnity insurance will usually cover you is small consolation when a court case or GMC complaint can drag on for years and can prevent you working in the meantime. All those on this post saying "Shop her" are part of the very climate that makes doctors reluctant to help. If you can't even be in your own home without the fear that someone is report you for supposed malpractice then no wonder doctors are risk averse.

I was involved in a car accident, the driver of a car who had witnessed the accident from somewhere behind me was the first to assist, he was a surgical registrar and had just finished his shift and was on his way home. He didn't medically treat me in anyway but he kept me still and talked to me until the ambulance arrived, I am so grateful to him.

This GP in my opinion was wrong not to assist but I don't know the circumstances, she may have a small child at home that she could not leave, may have been drunk, maybe anything... But I would report her and let her justify to her professional body why she didn't assist.

fanny I do not think you can be struck off if you were at home but you maybe if it happened in supermarket

the surgeons above were being called to work when off duty however if someone had collapsed at the meal the legal situation is different, they may have been drinking before meal and it is now generally thought for Gp's etc that no alcohol at all should be consumed within 8 hours of starting a shift or on call stint

on the surface it does appear compassionless and probably out of order but they maybe perfectly reasonable explanation

and I would leave my 3 year old to assist if it were safe, like she was in her car seat, or there was someone I trusted to watch her while I assisted I would consider someone else need greater than her being upset at being left in a locked car, however I live remotely and if I was home alone i would not leave her locked in house unattended while I went down to main road as even if I got there and was not needed she would have been alone for over 10 minutes by the time I got back and if I needed to stay until ambulance arrived because where we are it would take 20 minutes from nearest base she would be alone for 40+ minutes; neither would i let her wander round glasgow central station unsupervised and unattended because you certainly can not watch a toddler and concentrate on someone else's medical emergency though I would help if a railway worker /police office appearred who would mind her while I helped

As far as I understand if I am known to be a nurse, whether at home or supermarket then I am obliged.

If I refused to help neighbour then it would be possible that a complaint could be made against me to the NMC.

The bugger is if I fuck up there is also the risk of being struck off.

The mdu good Samaritan cover does cover worldwide, including the USA and Canada.

I'm not sure about the GMC, but what I understand about the NMC code is that if I'm on duty as a nurse, i would be legally obliged to stop and help (e.g community nursing or even a nurse driving to work based training). But I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be disciplined for refusing to help if someone knocked on your door.

There are lots of reasons why she refused to help. Also, did you actually hear this GP say "i'm not coming, I'm busy" or have you just heard it second hand / paraphrased by someone else?

She may not have been obliged to help. She may perhaps have had practical reasons for not going to help.

But morally, as a human being (especially as a human being with medical training), didn't she feel a whisper of concern that might have sent her to have a look at the injured man, or even to proffer a bit of advice?

you are definitely not obliged to help when at home because that would make you practically on call 24/7 for your neighbours someone might complain to NMC that "oh I knew fanny was a nurse so i rang her doorbell at 2am and she did not answer so i'm suing her" she would get precisely nowhere with that, though of course you would have some months of hassle with letter writing etc to deal with it

you are only obliged to help at home if your neighbour was actually in your house and she passed out or something. you are definitely not on call to the neighbourhood you may choose to help but you are like everyone else is entitled to downtime and you need it

the surgeons up thread do need time when they are uncontactable I guess it was only because the hospital staff knew all the surgeons were out at X hotel because of internal adverts for the event if they had been out playing golf fishing whatever they would never have reached them as most have a private phone whose number they do not give to NHS so they can have real time off

surgeons like aeroplane pilots and prime ministers do need a break just like everyone else no -one can function properly if never get a real break

france has good samaritan laws but they apply to everyone if you come across an accident you must stop and help it is about everyone though not just medics

Just found this, actually didn't realise they had taken the paragraph out of code of practice, interesting.
Still not a definitive answer though.

"Legally, nurses are free to walk on by.

In the eyes of the law, they have no more responsibility than any other member of the public to intervene in such a situation.

Professional responsibility, however, is another matter. The NMC code of conduct used to state that nurses had a duty to intervene in a crisis wherever it happened.

‘In an emergency in or outside the work setting, you have a professional duty to provide care. The care provided would be judged against what could reasonably be expected from someone with your knowledge, skills and abilities when placed in these particular circumstances,’ it said.

But in the new code, brought in earlier this year, that crucial paragraph has been removed. Instead, it states that nurses and midwives are expected to ‘provide a high standard of practice and care at all times’ and ‘make the care of people your first concern’.

And a cautious note is sounded. As a nurse, ‘you must be able to demonstrate that you have acted in someone’s best interests if you have provided care in an emergency’. This is far less clear. Instead of a duty to intervene, it suggests a warning about the risks. "

I can't believe the amount of people who,are saying report this lady. Off duty, in her own home, with whatever her reason was for not coming out. Presumably she thinks she can justify her position if necessary otherwise why would she put herself in a position where she might be disciplined for not responding.

nobody anywhere is on call 24/7 52 weeks a year which if you can be disciplined for refusing to come out of your house at any time of day or night would in effect make you permanently available or on call it is really a bit farcical to suggest that this would be the case, in fact in most NHS hospitals if you were in theatre all night you would actually not now be allowed to work all the following day you would be sent home ( this was not the case historically when you could effectively be working from 9am friday to 6pm monday with absolutely no guarantee or either food or sleep thankfully this has been stopped