Several recent incidents have caught our attention these past few days: the measles outbreak in Metro Manila, the Philippine HIV crisis and what we can about it, a recent death of a beloved doctor and student Dr Zuriel Arambulo by hit and run. However, one social media post gone viral got our attention, especially since it occurred in Cebu (again).
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| Standing and taking pictures does not do much in helping someone in distress. Image from: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~asif25s/bystander.htm |
This post was inspired by a recent video involving a critical patient in the emergency room of a district hospital in Cebu that had gone viral on social media. Watching it opened the floodgates of all other medical mishaps caught on video and posted on social media. Questions come to mind: where were the health professionals attending to this bleeding man? Knowing the patient is in a critical condition, why wasn't somebody doing first aid or emergency procedures to try to save his life? Whoever took the video had time to shoot the video, but no time to help?
Before we judge those in the video, let us ask ourselves first if there had been ANY incident in the past where we saw something that was happening was wrong and yet we failed to lift a finger to help.
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| Image from: https://psychologenie.com/bystander-effect-social-psychological-phenomenon |
The By-Stander Effect
When people are asked if they would be willing to help in an emergency situation, most people would say yes. In reality however, people refrain from helping when there are other people around. The "Bystander Effect" was termed after the circumstances under which Kitty Genovese was murdered on 13 March 1964. Even though she screamed for help, her neighbors did not come to her rescue. Thus, also known as the Genovese syndrome, the bystander effect is a psychological phenomenon that theorizes that the greater the number of bystanders present, the lesser is the likelihood of any of them coming forth to rescue the person in distress. The term was coined by psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latané in 1968, after they conducted a series of non-dangerous or violent emergency-based experiments to find out why the witnesses in the Kitty Genovese murder did not help her.
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| Image from: http://www.historynaked.com/kitty-genovese-syndrome/ |
Helen Dodson of Yale University explains in her blog that the "bystander effect," which refers to people standing by and doing nothing while an emergency situation takes place, can also apply to medical care. Can you give examples of bystander effect in medicine?
Hortensius and de Gelder (2018) posit that three psychological factors are thought to facilitate bystander apathy: the feeling of having less responsibility when more bystanders are present (diffusion of responsibility), the fear of unfavorable public judgment when helping (evaluation apprehension), and the belief that because no one else is helping, the situation is not actually an emergency (pluralistic ignorance). Can you think of the impact of the by-stander effect on patient safety?
Patient Safety
Last June 25, the Department of Health promoted the National Patient Safety Day. Although this was to raise awareness on the risks of hospital-acquired infections, several medical societies have undergone training on patient safety, such as Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (teamSTEPPS) to optimize patient outcomes by improving communication and teamwork skills among health care professionals - a strategy to reduce the by-stander effect. Suggest ways how to prevent the bystander effect in hospital settings.
In the end, all we have to answer for is our own conscience. As the old adage says, "evil men will triumph when the good man does nothing". I would also quote another champion of his time, Arthur Ashe when he said "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."
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| Image from: http://www.saryan.info/arthur-ashe-quote.html |
Data Privacy
The Data Privacy Act is another issue in this discussion, but not the primary issue at hand. Republic Act Number 10173, otherwise known as the Data Privacy Act of 2012, is a law that seeks to protect all forms of information, be it private, personal or sensitive. To comply with this law, each hospital should have a data privacy officer. With everyone having a social media digital presence, hospitals should have social media policies to guide them regarding what can and should not be posted on social media. Healthcare workers should always think that "first of all, do no harm" and question their motives in shooting a video of a patient without their implicit consent.
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| Image from: http://www.martijnboersma.com/boards-failing-corporate-social-responsibility |
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