A military
hospital is much like any other hospital. It's a big building, with a lot of little rooms. people scurry back and forth alot. Most of these people are
Doctors,
nurses and
PA's. The real difference between a military hospital and
civilian hospital, at least in the
US, is the
quality of care you will receive.
Here's the
clincher, a
soldier cannot sue another soldier. All military doctors are
commissioned officers. If a soldier receives poor care from a military doctor, that soldier can not sue for
malpractice. All of the doctors know this. I'm not saying that all of them are
rude and
insensitive, but most of them certainly are.
Civilian
dependents of soldiers are another thing though. A
civilian dependent of a soldier can sue for malpractice against a military doctor. I think the doctors tend to forget this though, and get lax in their
bedside manner.
Here's a story. The daughter of a
retired friend of mine went into the hospital at Fort Carson for a routine
apendix removal. For three days after the operations completion she was in
agony. She screamed almost constantly until she was
sedated. My friend asked what the problem was, had anything gone wrong? The doctor told my friend that
some discomfort was normal. On the second day the doctor claimed that the young lady must be a
substance abuser and was throwing
tantrums to obtain
pain relievers. On the third day my friend stormed into the chief surgeons office and raised holy hell until they agreed to go back and do some
exploratory surgery.
They discovered that the original
surgeon had managed to
perforate three inches of her
intestine more than a dozen times. She recovered. My friend was powerless. Had he still been an
active duty soldier he would surely have received
disciplinary action for his
fit of rage against a superior officer. His daughter sued the surgeon for malpractise and won a small settlement. The surgeon received no reprimands or any disciplinary action at all. The
US Army payed his malpractise settlement.