WARNING! FALSE STD/VD DIAGNOSIS!

[Alien]

Merriam Webster

falsehood

1 : an untrue statement : LIE
2 : absence of truth or accuracy
3 : the practice of lying : MENDACITY

men

[ironlady]

Why would a hospital which is pretty famous for treating foreigners want to do this........and do you think the doctors would really go in for this when they could ruin their medical careers and fat salaries?

I agree with your other points, but is Jen'ai really "famous for treating foreigners"? Foreigners go there because they're forced to do so to get medical exams, but most of the foreigners I know who get sick hie themselves off to other medical institutions (Adventist, Tai-Da, Makai [can't remember the English name just now]), don't they?

Here's a scary idea for you -- medical related -- I translated a paper a couple of years back which had a survey of nursing students, asking why they'd chosen nursing as a career. Only a ridiculously low number actually *chose* -- the rest had parents who "thought it would be good" or said "well, it's better than going into the army" (this was a guy, obviously), stuff like that.

I also caught part of a TV show the other night (on one of the 2 channels I can get with my pathetic little antenna!) where they were interviewing med students and asking the same question: why had they chosen medicine? Most said "Mom and Dad wanted me to be a doctor"; the other common reason was "my marks were good enough". Added to the fact that medical school starts at age 17 or 18 here (I know, I used to teach at one!) -- this scares me!!

[Flicka]

No, for claiming that the hospital or lab knowingly and deliberately falsified a clinical test for financial gain. You'd better check out the difference between an urban myth and an libel.... I was criticizing his unjustified and unsupported conclusion about the error and his indiscretion in mentioning the name of a hospital even though his friend did not tell him which one it was.

I know the difference between an urban myth and libel. I also know that as an affluent expat WASP, the last thing I would be afraid of is a third-world hospital suing me for libel. Who cares if Juba gave an "unsupported and unjustfied" conclusion? We are talking about a hospital whose claim to fame is that they offer the cheapest health checks in town. I can't believe you are taking this so seriously.

Another piece of anecdotal evidence amounting to nothing more than a mote. I'm sure the hospitals and doctors where you come from never make mistakes. The next time you get sick, be sure to go back home for decent treatment by "real doctors".

Mistakes? Picking up the wrong pair of glasses is a mistake. Marking that a guy is pregnant on a form with an obvious male name (and photo) is appalling. So is a health system that encourages blatant fraud and needless prescriptions. And what about injecting babies with the wrong vaccine? Oops, just another mistake I guess.

[Lord Lucan]

A "falsehood" is a statement or assertion known to be untrue, and intended to deceive.

No, a falsehood is just something that is untrue - It may or may not be intended to deceive. You are equating "falsehood" with "lie," but they are not exactly the same. If you can think of a better word to describe something that may have been thought by the person who said it to be true, but was in fact false, please tell us. I'll let you have the last word on it, if you insist.

negligent misstatement

The hospital owes a duty of care to the patient to conduct the test in a reasonably competent manner, that is to a standard that could be reasonably expected from a hospital laboratory. If they make an untrue or inaccurate statement which they should have known to have been untrue, and they did not know it to be untrue because they failed to exercise their duty of care, then that statement is a negligent misstatement, for which the remedy is a suit for damages. In English law that is. I would imagine US law is very similar, and Taiwanese law is very different (!) Negligent misstatement is a personal favourite of mine as legal aid (government assistance to non-millionaires) can be provided to pursue such a claim, whereas there is no legal aid for libel, nor (I think) for defamation.

[Tigerman]

A "falsehood" is a statement or assertion known to be untrue, and intended to deceive.

No, a falsehood is just something that is untrue - It may or may not be intended to deceive. You are equating "falsehood" with "lie," but they are not exactly the same.

Sorry Juba, you're wrong. I took the definition of "falsehood" from Black's Law Dictionary, 5th Edition. As we are discussing "libel", a legal term, I will stick to using legal definitions. If you want to make up your own definitions of words, go right ahead. I'm just trying to give you a friendly warning or "heads up" for your own good.

If you can think of a better word to describe something that may have been thought by the person who said it to be true, but was in fact false, please tell us.

OK. How about a "mistake"?

I'll let you have the last word on it, if you insist.

Fine.

[Tigerman]

negligent misstatement

The hospital owes a duty of care to the patient to conduct the test in a reasonably competent manner, that is to a standard that could be reasonably expected from a hospital laboratory. If they make an untrue or inaccurate statement which they should have known to have been untrue, and they did not know it to be untrue because they failed to exercise their duty of care, then that statement is a negligent misstatement, for which the remedy is a suit for damages. In English law that is. I would imagine US law is very similar...

Yes, I think that is how I remember it from law school many years ago. The only twist in the above explanation, unless the law has changed, is that the "standard of professional care" that medical professionals can be held to in the US can vary. That is, if I suffer a heart attack in Rochester, Minnesota, I can expect a very high degree of care and skill from a cardiologist who is on the cutting edge of heart health research and practice at the Mayo Clinic, while if I suffer the same heart attack in Stick-in-the-Swamp, Louisianna, I can expect a rather lower degree of professional care and skill from the lone doctor there, a general practitioner who normally delivers babies and sets broken bones.

In any event, a negligent mistatement is not the same as a falsehood or a lie, and I know that you are aware of this. I think that "libel", as discussed in this thread, in light of the fact that this is a message board, is important for people to understand.

Certainly nobody denies that medical malpractice is a gravely serious matter... but some people here are mixing the issues.

[Lord Lucan]

[quote="tigerman]In any event, a negligent mistatement is not the same as a falsehood or a lie, and I know that you are aware of this. I think that "libel", as discussed in this thread, in light of the fact that this is a message board, is important for people to understand.[/quote]

Yes, and that is an important distinction, because a negligent misstatement can be made by someone who genuinely believed it to be true, but did not do enough to verify the statement's veracity. A malicious falsehood (heh heh let's trot them all out...!) on the other hand, requires an intent to deceive.

[Alien]

OH well, no matter what, Ren'ai Hospital is a meat market with a constant stream of cows going through there getting so called, "health checks". Moo.

Few years ago during a blood test there, this wanker misjabbed my arm and copious amounts of blood spurted out (for about five minutes) and I was left with a bruise all the way down the inside of my arm...

Mistake? You bet! Did I get an apology? No way!

I hate them and all the other hospitals here. The way they treat patients is disgusting, unless of course you slip them fat red envelopes for their troubles!

And I wouldn't even say that the inadequacy comes from the socialised national health care system, since my prime hospital experiences came in the days before the NHI.

Doctors and nurses have no bedside manner to speak of, mistakes galore in treatment and diagnosis occur daily, and I very much doubt that these 'doctors' are often sued for malpractice or taught anything about 'ethics' during med school.

It's unfortunate that laborers and teachers are the only groups of foreign workers who're forced to get health exams every year for their visas. It reeks of discrimination!

[Jeff]

This is from a US CDC document (http://www.cdc.gov/STD/treatment/2-2002TG.htm#Syphilis):

"The use of only one type of serologic test is insufficient for diagnosis [of syphilis], because false-positive nontreponemal test results may occur secondary to various medical conditions."

So, it's easy enough to have a false-positive finding. However, the original hospital should probably have told your friend of the possibility of false-positive findings and offered additional testing. I wouldn't expect teh additional testing to be free, though.

Keep in mind that false-negative results are also possible, so there's no guarantee that your friend's second test wasn't wrong, unless it was a highly sensitive test.

[Omniloquacious]

Better not lose sight of the fact that Juba, as a Chinese-literate long-term resident of Taiwan, was interpreting the situation in the light of the widespread and well-supported belief here that many hospitals and clinics are run primarily (if not exclusively) as money-making businesses, with their administrators often putting pressure on doctors and other staff to extract as much money as possible from each patient by whatever means are available, regardless of ethics, honesty, or any other such considerations. This is a subject that has been very well aired in the local media over the years, especially in the more recent past. It's hard not to be highly sceptical about medical practices in such an environment. It is an issue of great concern to civic groups, lawmakers, and government officials. In this context, it is not so unreasonable to draw a highly negative conclusion from the facts as presented to Juba by his friend. I probably wouldn't have interpreted it as a "lie", "untruth", "falsehood", or the like, but I would certainly have condemned the hospital for what was apparently yet another lamentable instance of shoddy practice.

But regardless of anything else, the conclusion that I've drawn from reading this thread is that when being tested for anything in a local hospital (and perhaps likewise in many other countries), it would be wise to have the test repeated at least three times by different hospitals or clinics to come anywhere near to being confident about the accuracy of the result.