Rules of the Road: Known Risks

Early Sunday Morning

Edward Hopper

1930

It can be a little confusing, being a juror in a case about medical mistakes.

It's confusing to try to figure out what the rules of surgery are when you are not a surgeon. And sometimes, good lawyers (looking at the defense) , who have done this lots of times, know that if they use words that people are not used to, like "known risk of the surgery", it makes it more confusing.

That's because those of us who don't deal with surgery every day have no idea about the rules of surgery....rules that surgeons take for granted. Rules that good surgeons know very well.

If this was a car accident case, we wouldn't be so easily confused, because we all know the rules of the road. We all live with them every day.

For instance, we all know that getting run over by an inattentive driver is a risk of walking from one corner of the street to the other at a cross walk.

We all know that getting hit broadside is a known risk of driving through a green light.

We all know that sometimes other drivers carelessly drift across the centre line and hit other cars head on, and that we take a known risk of such an accident every time we drive.

We also know that we take a risk that WE might accidently run a red light, or miss a stop sign, and that too is a known risk of driving a car.

All of these things, and many more, are "known risks" of operating a motor vehicle.

Do the words "known risk" mean that we, or the other person who caused the wreck, shouldn't take personal responsibility for the harm they ~ or we~ caused?

What would you think if this were a car accident case, and a lawyer representing an inattentive driver stood up and tried to tell you that his client should be excused for drifting into the other lane because mistakes like that are just a "known risk"?

Yes, inattentive mistakes are a "known risk" of surgery too. Inattentive mistakes are a known risk of just about anything we do, but they are still mistakes.

But, just like the Rules of the Road, there are rules in surgery too. The first rule learned by every surgeon is that you have to know what you are cutting before you cut it. The first rule of surgery is to NEVER cut into a body part unless you know what it is. You don't guess about what you are cutting. You don't speculate about what you are cutting. You don't cut first and hope for the best later. If you don't know, you don't cut.

So let's not let the use of the words "known risk" confuse us, because they really don't mean anything. They don't help us decide what needs to be decided.

 

Butcher Bill
Gangs of New York

 

 

Image source

Edward Hopper: his paintings,

biography and quotes.