POLICE ORGANIZATION SAYS ER DOCS SOMETIMES GIVE POOR CARE TO INJURED COPS

A survey of local police personnel reveals that many of them believe that ER physicians use the wrong type of suture in closing lacerations, prescribe incorrect antibiotics, or otherwise misuse their positions as healers when caring for their colleagues. When questioned, the police spokeperson was able to cite absolutely no data to confirm these beliefs, but she stated that “Everybody says so, especially the instructors at the Police Academy.” She added that the recipients of alleged poor care were afraid to complain, because they rely of the goodwill of the ER physicians and staff to help them when they are injured while on their beats protecting the populace.

But look carefully at the question (I haven’t seen the actual survey instrument) – things like “MAY HAVE been excessive” and ” A case” (indicating a singular occurance).

I think that trying to spin this into a LEO vs ED MD is the wrong angle. Realistically, ED physicians AND law enforcement officers want the same thing – criminals behind bars, nobody to get hurt, neither profession to be impugned by the rogue actions of the rare bad apple.

As far as mandatory reporting goes, the REASON we report elder abuse and child abuse is because these populations are essentially unable to advocate for themselves, so we do so for them. However, if a mentally sound adult is allegedly arrested with excessive force, it is the responsibility of that adult to advocate for himself (and a system of review and ability to complain should be in place.) The role of the physician in this setting would be to document any injuries accurately and in a non-biased fashion so that the individual could report that information should s/he choose.

Until you’ve seen the entire incident with your own eyes (or better yet, actually helped fight the suspect, including watch him/her nearly incapacitates other officers, before being dogpiled by the rest), you really don’t need to be passing judgment. There’s a reason why Police use-of-force cases are judged from the standard of a reasonable police officer, and not the usual reasonable man standard.

Sorry… judging police use-of-force isn’t in my lane, and I’m not in a hurry to monday-morning-quarterback the guys who actually do that job, and making me some sort of “mandatory reporter” isn’t going to change that.

I no longer do ED work but if I had been given the survey I would have to say yes, I saw cases where excessive force seemed to have been used. I of course was usually seeing the patient after the struggle, and realized I was in no position to make a good judgment. This is radically different than child and elder abuse where violence is generally presumed to be unnecessary. You don’t have to be in an ED very long to learn there are times when force is necessary to protect police, ED staff and patients.