Re:The U.S. tried to build a new fleet of ventilators
by omar_a1 on Sunday March 29, 2020 @08:16PM
(#22724009)
> Yes, people in this thread are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good
No, it's because medicine has a very low fault tolerance, and requires a large body of technical knowledge to even understand what needs to happen for your patient.
Having a team of incompetent clinicians perform complicated medical procedures "good" as a layperson still results in disproportionate people dying, that would have survived under a competent practitioner.
Re:The U.S. tried to build a new fleet of ventilators
by marnett on Sunday March 29, 2020 @10:10PM
(#22724577)
> [...] would have survived under a competent practitioner.
Bringing us back to the topic of this thread, a potential lack of competent practitioners if the pandemic worsens, and what the best solution to address this would be, such as a COVID-specific ventilator training.
Re:The U.S. tried to build a new fleet of ventilators
by omar_a1 on Sunday March 29, 2020 @10:36PM
(#22724714)
Because the difference between letting someone die under inappropriately-applied ventilation versus just letting someone die is the occupation of a perfectly good ventilator. One that could be used to actually save someone. If you're in the business of killing patients, a gun would be more economical than a ventilator.
Re:The U.S. tried to build a new fleet of ventilators
by mistermann on Monday March 30, 2020 @12:57AM
(#22725366)
I believe there is a third possible outcome that you overlooked.
But when you're dealing with a pandemic, you can do without. Do you really think that your typical doctor spent all that much time in med school or residency learning how to operate a particular kind of machinery? If we have the ventilators, we'll be able to find people to operate them.