We were away last week and missed the Panorama programme about the death of Jack Adcock and the erasure and then reinstatement of Dr Bawa-Garba from the medical register. There’s a lengthy piece written by Deb Cohen, a medical journalist, here. I wasn’t surprised it’s biased because a previous article by Cohen demonstrates her support for Bawa-Garba. I am surprised it’s being touted as a balanced piece of journalism by (some) medics.
As usual, raising this on twitter generates some pretty low level insults/attack.
“…suggest Sara contacts
Or this:
There’s also no dot joining with sense offered by other twitter peeps.
Ho hum. Here are some reasons why I think it’s not a balanced piece of journalism.
A poor start…
The article starts with a sweeping statement;
When a junior doctor was convicted of manslaughter and struck off the medical register for her role in the death of six-year-old Jack Adcock, shockwaves reverberated through the medical profession.
There were no shockwaves reverberating through the medical profession when Bawa-Garba was found guilty of gross criminal negligence nearly three years ago. The #IamHadiza hashtag probably emerged some time late last year as medics started to realise there may be implications for their own practice.
Differential treatment
Bawa-Garba is treated differently to other people referred to within the article. She’s presented as a devoted mother, daughter and doctor with elaborate descriptions like “writing till her pen ran out of ink…”
In contrast, mention of the Adcock family is perfunctory and largely brief other than a few paragraphs capturing some of the family trauma and Jack’s character.
This difference is clear from the first mention of Jack and Bawa-Garba in which additional context is offered about the latter.
Jack Adcock wasn’t himself when he returned home from school. He later started vomiting and had diarrhoea, which continued through the night.
Trainee doctor Hadiza Bawa-Garba arrived at work expecting to be on the general paediatric ward – the ward she’d been on all week. She had only recently returned to work after having her first baby.
When Jack or his mum are mentioned sentences are typically short and factual without much or any additional commentary or explanation.
The boy’s hands and feet were cold and had a blue-grey tinge. He also had a cough.
But they [parents] say they heard very little from the hospital. They were sent a copy of the Leicester Royal Infirmary investigation and invited to discuss it, but they didn’t want to.
Cohen repeatedly fudges and fills in the gaps for Bawa-Garba. She doesn’t do this for Jack or his family. They are left with a careless ‘didn’t want to’.
‘But…’
Liberal use of ‘but’ is sprinkled throughout the article in relation to Bawa-Garba. There are few ‘buts’ about the Adcocks.
Fewer ‘buts’ are arguably better in terms of journalistic (or broader writing practice) but the ‘but’ differential suggests Cohen falling off the balanced and informed journalistic perch. (The old ‘mistake’ creeps into the first example here with a dramatic, unevidenced statement.)
But she didn’t consider that Jack might have had a more serious condition. It was a mistake she regrets to this day.
Dr Bawa-Garba looked for Jack’s blood results from the lab. She had fast-tracked them an hour-and-a-half earlier. But when she went to view them on the computer system, it had gone down.
But Dr Bawa-Garba says she wishes she had given him antibiotics sooner.
Bawa-Garba is quoted in full throughout the piece. She isn’t paraphrased, a practice which introduces doubt over authenticity and validity. The Adcocks (and others) are paraphrased.
It was only then, the Adcocks say, they heard the “true facts” and “listened to the detail” about the errors that Dr Bawa-Garba had made.
The use of minutes taken by a family friend during a meeting with the Trust as evidence also suggests questions around the validity of the family evidence. Bawa-Garba however is given space within the article to explain, account for and/or have the accounting/explaining done for her by Cohen:
“I knew that I had to get a line in him quickly to get some bloods and also give him some fluids to rehydrate him,” says Dr Bawa-Garba. He didn’t flinch when she put his cannula in.
Dr Bawa-Garba tried a number of extensions before managing to speak to someone. They read out Jack’s results and she noted them down. She says she was looking out for one particular test result called CRP, which would confirm whether Jack’s illness had been caused by bacteria or a virus. She noted it was 97, far higher than it should have been, so she circled it. But she says she was concentrating so much on the CRP that she failed to register that his creatinine and urea were also high – signalling possible kidney failure.”
Inexcusable failings like missing the significance of blood results are buried in words. Unsubstantiated words that offer flimsy excuses or explanations. Bawa-Garba was concentrating so hard on something else... Cohen almost trips over herself with excuses, explanations, ‘buts’ and the downgrading of what is basically shite practice to ‘mistakes’.
Dr Bawa-Garba had been on call for more than 12 hours when an emergency call went out for a patient who had suffered a cardiac arrest on ward 28 and doctors and nurses rushed to help. In the morning, Dr Bawa-Garba had had to intervene to stop doctors from trying to resuscitate a terminally ill boy who had a “do not resuscitate” order. She assumed it was the same boy. What she didn’t know was that Jack had subsequently been moved to the same ward as the boy who had crashed in the morning – ward 28.
A terrible confusion was about to follow.
She is seemingly oblivious to a doctor basing her medical practice on assumption and guesswork and ignoring the evidence in front of her. Ironically, Cohen seems to be doing a similar job in this article.
A terrible ‘confusion’…
Only one of the numerous failings Jack experienced that day is prefaced with a fanfare ‘failure’ statement:
It was at this point that another failing in Jack’s care occurred.
Any guesses which failing? Yep. The administration of enalapril by Jack’s mum. Cohen includes the inquest evidence that Jack’s mum acted responsibly doing this and that the impact of this drug on Jack’s condition is inconclusive. Despite this evidence she still positions this failing differently.
The inclusion of micro detail at times speaks to a determination to funnel out any whiff that Bawa-Garba did a poor job.
She asked one of the doctors in her team to chase up the results for her patients, and took on some of that doctor’s tasks.
Within this reification of Bawa-Garba’s medical ability, the work of medics is kind of lost. Work is work. Bawa-Garba was doing her job like other staff present were doing their jobs. The guilty manslaughter charge was based on the layers of exceptionally poor care Jack received. Bawa-Garba remains guilty of this charge. A vague statement about taking on some tasks does not mitigate this.
And the unsaid…
There’s so much unsaid within the article I can almost hear tumbleweed blowing through it. While I understand constraints on what can be written in terms of length/word count what is left unsaid is deeply problematic.
Cohen mentions the crowdsourced legal fees by medics which raised over £300k. She doesn’t mention the Adcocks remortgaged their house to cover their legal fees.
She refers to the negative commentary Bawa-Garba has received from members of the public on and offline without mentioning the negative commentary Nicola Adcock has experienced (blaming her for the death of her son).
She speaks to various medics and includes tweets from medics in the article. She doesn’t include interviews with, or commentary from, the wider public. She doesn’t include tweets by non-medics. Presenting ‘us’ and ‘them’ is clear in intent and execution. This is about a ‘wronged’ medic and her rattled peers. A medical guild. There is no ‘public and patient involvement’.
Cohen ignores various inconsistencies; medics belatedly joining Bawa-Garba’s fight, denouncing scapegoating while scapegoating, talking about a ‘no blame’ culture while blaming, ignoring the proceedings of a lengthy trial and appeal process, ignoring the nursing staff.
She doesn’t comment on unchecked inappropriate commentary from some medics circulating on social media.
Or how public confidence must be dented by this demonstration of arrogance, refusal to engage with evidence and self-preservation.
She doesn’t make the link to evidence around the premature deaths of learning disabled people or ask why Jack was the recipient of such exceptionally poor care
In short, Cohen has decanted and deliberately funnelled a particular version of events. In doing so, she’s captured the (medical) sediment and lost the oxygen, the life, the flavour and basic humanity. Cohen had an opportunity to demonstrate skilled, balanced and informed journalism. To explore what happened to Jack with his family, Bawa-Garba, Theresa Taylor and Isabel Amaro and relevant others. She chose instead a route of overly-sensationalising what happened or didn’t happen and erasing other parts. Perhaps feeding on or being being fed by the agitation of a group of medics who appear to have lost sight of what constitutes evidence in their determination to protect themselves.
mydaftlife 