Sold out clinical negligence conference in Dublin
Inspire MediLaw held its first clinical negligence conference in Dublin on 13 September. We were delighted that the conference sold out and that delegates travelled from all over Ireland to join us.
Aidan O’Brien, barrister from Farrar’s Building Chambers talked about the ‘Duty of Candour and the Rogue Surgeon’. During his presentation, the press announced that Spire Healthcare and NHS Heart of England had agreed to pay out £37.2 million to Ian Paterson’s private patients – so this talk proved very topical. Emma Hanratty, barrister at the Law Library, Dublin, gave an impressive legal update on clinical negligence.
The event attracted very positive comments, with one delegate suggesting that the medical speakers were “phenomenal”.
Dr David Levy, Consultant Anaesthetist, Nottingham University Hospitals gave a very interesting talk on obstetric anaesthesia and medico-legal issues. This covered consent issues, general anaesthesia awareness, regional anaesthesia and analgesia, critical care and cardiac arrest.
Dr Deborah Annesley-Williams, Consultant Neuroradiologist, Royal Derby Hospital University Trust, gave an insightful presentation on “What gets you into trouble in the Brain and Spine?”. Deborah gave us some fascinating case studies on cauda equine syndrome, spinal haemorrhage, stroke, brain tumours and abscesses.
Mr Kim Hinshaw, Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, gave a superb talk, “Can we prevent poor outcome in shoulder dystocia?”. Kim’s practical demonstration of causation in shoulder dystocia gave us some very good insights into what goes wrong and why.
Dr Roderick MacKenzie, Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine, talked about how pre-hospital emergency medicine is now a speciality in its own right. He also talked about the role of human factors in errors in emergency health care and the misperceptions underpinning allegations of clinical negligence related to pre-hospital and emergency department care.
Professor Richard Beale, Professor of Intensive Care from King’s College, London, couldn’t have spoken on sepsis on a more apt day –with 13 September being World Sepsis Day. The audience was surprised to learn that sepsis kills more people than bowel, prostate and breast cancer – “the lack of awareness causes sepsis to often be misdiagnosed and untreated”.
Gastroenterologist Dr Glen Doherty gave a very insightful talk into the delays in colorectal cancer diagnosis. Delays in diagnosis included failure to investigate symptoms or laboratory findings in a timely manner and failure to detect and remove adenomas/polyps due to adequacy of the examination, quality of bowel preparation and performance of the colonoscopist. Glen also went through some interesting case studies.
We are looking forward to returning to Dublin in May 2018 for an obstetric masterclass and obstetric conference, then again in September for ‘Medico-Legal issues in Orthopaedics’.