There are many "rumors" that spread when there is a sentinel event/death during a surgical event.
So let's not jump to conclusions till the whole story is played out.
I did locums at a certain Northern California hospital back in 2007/early 2008. A long time anesthesia group had lost their contract so the hospital used locums. Right before I came one, one of the "locums killed an ASA 1 patient with a suppose interscalene block gone bad according to the local newspapers" They wanted to launch a criminal investigation.
So this "rumor" went on even when I came to do locums a couple of months after the event. Patients were scared of anesthesia. The anesthesia group who lost their contract "said, I told you so to the hospital"
So there was too much fear spread that patients starting staying away from that hospital.
But guess what? The real reason why the patient died wasn't because of the block. It was the surgeon injecting epi and that's what cause the fatal arrythmia. However, those final results did not come back for at least 2 months after patient death. So in their mind, "anesthesia was to blame" when it wasn't the locums anesthesiologist's fault. But new locums were put to a much higher standard when they came to the hospital.
So as Mark Twain once said, "someone who reads the news is misinformed" So let's get the whole story before we jump to conclusions.
