Dr. Arthur Caplan is an American ethicist and professor of bioethics at New York University Grossman School of Medicine. He is known for his contributions to the U.S. public policy, including: helping to found the National Marrow Donor Program; creating the policy of required request in cadaver organ donation adopted throughout the United States; helping to create the system for distributing organs in the U.S.; and advising on the content of the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, rules governing living organ donation, and legislation and regulation in many other areas of health care including blood safety and compassionate use.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a podcast from WOR.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Here again is Larry MENTI with the WOR Saturday Morning Show.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
There is a real concern about an increase in violence
in hospitals and medical centers across the country, with patients
attacking doctors. Let's talk about that with doctor Arthur Kaplan,
professor of bioethics at New York University Langne Medical Center.
Good morning, doctor, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hey? Are you so?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I'm not gonna yell, I'm not gonna curse, I'm not
gonna spit, I'm not gonna threaten you, because now I
hear that's bad for my health? Is that right?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Is bad for your health? There is a recent study
much more increase in patients attacking, spitting, yelling, at acting
in impolite, uncivil or just nasty hostilities toward their doctors.
The study just came out and it showed that about
(00:57):
almost eighteen percent of doctors supported past year that they
had been through some assault or attack from their physician.
And this is all over the places, in hospital settings, clinics,
some even in private offices. So the question is, first,
what do you do about this? And I think the
(01:17):
doctors need some support. You know, many of them feel
pretty traumatized after they get attacked with they're trying to
help somebody, So institutions should be doing that. More to
the point, here's a question for you, Larry, Do I
have to take care of a patient who threatens my life?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I know, obviously not. As a matter of fact, if
they threaten your life, you should be reporting them to
the police. Are you allowed to do that? Do ethics
allow you to report a patient they do?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And you could do it internally to hospital security. You
don't even have to go outside, you know, to the
regular police. So hospitals need to set up protocols about
what to do in the case of really violent, nasty
or even if somebody literally attacks I think you could
say to that patient, we're done here. I'm not gonna
(02:09):
be able to take care of you. You are, you know,
hostile to me, and I don't feel comfortable doing it,
and I'm calling security and all of that should be
something that we teach our doctors and young doctors and
nurses about what to do if they're the victims of
this sort of stuff we shouldn't put up with. It
should be clear and there should be also I hate
(02:29):
to say it, but posted notices. You know you do X,
Y or Z, you will not get care at this
facility period you're expected to behave by the way. One
weird trigger this comes out of COVID and all the
politics is sometimes doctors are wearing masks or shields. Some
(02:51):
hospitals have policies that you have to do that in
certain units like bone marrow transplant where everybody is really
susceptible to infection or can't reward. And patients get ticked
off because they read that as you're a democrat or
you're a liberal, or you're supporting you know whatever. Obviously
it's got nothing at all to do with anything, but
(03:12):
that has become so political that that could trigger that
kind of a reaction.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Well, that can't be the number one reason.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Is it? No? No, no, it's just there on that list.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Of whatever is what is the number one reason?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I think the number one reason is getting bad news
something that the patient, the person just doesn't want to hear.
It could range from you gotta lose weight or you're
gonna be in serious trouble all the way over to
I'm sorry, but grandma's not going to live or your
baby's not gonna live, and people blow up. Now, I
think they they part of this. Also, I'll say this,
(03:45):
I think they used to get more spiritual support in
the hospital from chaplains or from people you know, in
their community. They knew where to turn when they got
bad news. Even though it's a pretty religious country, a
lot of these people don't have connections to churches or
synagogues or mosques or whatever, and so they kind of
just they don't know what to do with that grief.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, no, I can see that happening. I hope that
they read flag these patients for other doctors, especially if
it's not just a one off. If I can understand
that somebody overreacting, that's not the way they are normally.
But if it happens a couple of times, doctors should know,
and you were right, I agree with you. They should
be able to say I'm not seeing this patient, they're dangerous.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yep. You can also do things like I'm going to
take care of you, but the security guard is going
to be here. I'm passing you after somebody else because
I can't. But the next person in this facility, you're
gonna have to come under supervision. And that's just how
it is, or there's gonna be a big burly student
in the room with us. You know, we're gonna set
(04:52):
up safer conditions. And I absolutely agree with you. If
you can red flag somebody and get the word out
that they're consistently behaving badly, we should. Unfortunately, as we
all know, the system, the healthcare system we live in,
isn't set up that way. If I go to NYU
and some guys there for the fifth time being an idiot,
(05:12):
and then he shows up at Mount Sinai later, n
YU isn't really talking about mounts about that. We don't
have the records between places. We can do it within
an institution, but we're not really set up to track
somebody throughout the whole healthcare world. Right.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Getting back to my original point, it's bad for your
health because the one person that you want to be
really nice too is your doctor. I sure would, because
you want your doctor to put you at the top
of the list for everything.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
You want to go out and defend somebody. You know,
not that I'm endorsing screaming or yelling anybody, but your
doctor is probably like at the bottom of the list,
not the person you want to take off.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, exactly, doctor Arthur Kaplan, Professor of Bioethics at New
York University Langone Medical Center. This has been a podcast
from WR
This is a podcast from WOR.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Here again is Larry MENTI with the WOR Saturday Morning Show.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
There is a real concern about an increase in violence
in hospitals and medical centers across the country, with patients
attacking doctors. Let's talk about that with doctor Arthur Kaplan,
professor of bioethics at New York University Langne Medical Center.
Good morning, doctor, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hey? Are you so?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I'm not gonna yell, I'm not gonna curse, I'm not
gonna spit, I'm not gonna threaten you, because now I
hear that's bad for my health? Is that right?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Is bad for your health? There is a recent study
much more increase in patients attacking, spitting, yelling, at acting
in impolite, uncivil or just nasty hostilities toward their doctors.
The study just came out and it showed that about
(00:57):
almost eighteen percent of doctors supported past year that they
had been through some assault or attack from their physician.
And this is all over the places, in hospital settings, clinics,
some even in private offices. So the question is, first,
what do you do about this? And I think the
(01:17):
doctors need some support. You know, many of them feel
pretty traumatized after they get attacked with they're trying to
help somebody, So institutions should be doing that. More to
the point, here's a question for you, Larry, Do I
have to take care of a patient who threatens my life?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I know, obviously not. As a matter of fact, if
they threaten your life, you should be reporting them to
the police. Are you allowed to do that? Do ethics
allow you to report a patient they do?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And you could do it internally to hospital security. You
don't even have to go outside, you know, to the
regular police. So hospitals need to set up protocols about
what to do in the case of really violent, nasty
or even if somebody literally attacks I think you could
say to that patient, we're done here. I'm not gonna
(02:09):
be able to take care of you. You are, you know,
hostile to me, and I don't feel comfortable doing it,
and I'm calling security and all of that should be
something that we teach our doctors and young doctors and
nurses about what to do if they're the victims of
this sort of stuff we shouldn't put up with. It
should be clear and there should be also I hate
(02:29):
to say it, but posted notices. You know you do X,
Y or Z, you will not get care at this
facility period you're expected to behave by the way. One
weird trigger this comes out of COVID and all the
politics is sometimes doctors are wearing masks or shields. Some
(02:51):
hospitals have policies that you have to do that in
certain units like bone marrow transplant where everybody is really
susceptible to infection or can't reward. And patients get ticked
off because they read that as you're a democrat or
you're a liberal, or you're supporting you know whatever. Obviously
it's got nothing at all to do with anything, but
(03:12):
that has become so political that that could trigger that
kind of a reaction.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Well, that can't be the number one reason.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Is it? No? No, no, it's just there on that list.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Of whatever is what is the number one reason?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I think the number one reason is getting bad news
something that the patient, the person just doesn't want to hear.
It could range from you gotta lose weight or you're
gonna be in serious trouble all the way over to
I'm sorry, but grandma's not going to live or your
baby's not gonna live, and people blow up. Now, I
think they they part of this. Also, I'll say this,
(03:45):
I think they used to get more spiritual support in
the hospital from chaplains or from people you know, in
their community. They knew where to turn when they got
bad news. Even though it's a pretty religious country, a
lot of these people don't have connections to churches or
synagogues or mosques or whatever, and so they kind of
just they don't know what to do with that grief.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, no, I can see that happening. I hope that
they read flag these patients for other doctors, especially if
it's not just a one off. If I can understand
that somebody overreacting, that's not the way they are normally.
But if it happens a couple of times, doctors should know,
and you were right, I agree with you. They should
be able to say I'm not seeing this patient, they're dangerous.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yep. You can also do things like I'm going to
take care of you, but the security guard is going
to be here. I'm passing you after somebody else because
I can't. But the next person in this facility, you're
gonna have to come under supervision. And that's just how
it is, or there's gonna be a big burly student
in the room with us. You know, we're gonna set
(04:52):
up safer conditions. And I absolutely agree with you. If
you can red flag somebody and get the word out
that they're consistently behaving badly, we should. Unfortunately, as we
all know, the system, the healthcare system we live in,
isn't set up that way. If I go to NYU
and some guys there for the fifth time being an idiot,
(05:12):
and then he shows up at Mount Sinai later, n
YU isn't really talking about mounts about that. We don't
have the records between places. We can do it within
an institution, but we're not really set up to track
somebody throughout the whole healthcare world. Right.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Getting back to my original point, it's bad for your
health because the one person that you want to be
really nice too is your doctor. I sure would, because
you want your doctor to put you at the top
of the list for everything.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
You want to go out and defend somebody. You know,
not that I'm endorsing screaming or yelling anybody, but your
doctor is probably like at the bottom of the list,
not the person you want to take off.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, exactly, doctor Arthur Kaplan, Professor of Bioethics at New
York University Langone Medical Center. This has been a podcast
from WR
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