Reasonable and Prudent
Should the public expect physicians in leadership positions who determine how medicine is practiced to have read Pfizer’s 6-month mRNA vaccine trial results? This trial showed an increased number of deaths and more adverse reactions in the vaccine group. Such physicians sit on state medical boards, county medical societies, Â the board of directors of the medical subspecialty licensing boards, and physician organizations, and despite the trial’s finding, all of these entities recommended that everyone be vaccinated. How did they come to that conclusion?
If such physicians did not read the study, should they continue to hold their office or be removed? If they did read the study, how did they conclude that everyone (or nearly everyone) should be vaccinated for COVID-19? Should they publicly disclose their decision-making in those cases?
In medical malpractice cases, physicians are judged by whether they followed the standard of care. Baked into the standard of care is the phrase “reasonable and prudent”. “Reasonable and prudent” embodies the level of diligence, skill, judgment, and foresight expected from a clinician in fulfilling their obligations to the patient or client. It signifies the standard of care that a competent healthcare provider would exercise under similar circumstances.”
It does not necessarily mean that if a physician did what most physicians would do, they acted in a “reasonable and prudent” manner, as physicians can be misled, deceived, Â and are often wrong.
We see an example of this with COVID-19 management.
COVID-19: Was Reasonable and Prudent Achieved?
Were most physicians “reasonable and prudent” in recommending COVID-19 vaccines, given the results of the study? Keep in mind, COVID-19 was to decimate society.
In my opinion, a “reasonable and prudent” physician would have read the study for themselves. Secondly, a reasonable and prudent reader of the study would NOT recommend the vaccines across the board to all patients, reserving such a recommendation for high-risk patients since higher numbers of deaths and adverse effects were seen among those vaccinated.
Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude that many physicians in leadership positions who shape the practice of medicine probably did not read Pfizer’s 6-month trial study.
At some point, all those physicians in leadership positions of all the organizations I mentioned should have to explain themselves. How can they serve in a leadership position that shapes the practice of medicine and not read the study for a problem for which there was much doom and gloom, or read it and make counter-intuitive recommendations?.
COVID-19 management is an example where the “reasonable and prudent” concept was ignored.
References
Vanderpool D. The Standard of Care. Innov Clin Neurosci. 2021 Jul-Sep;18(7-9):50-51. PMID: 34980995; PMCID: PMC8667701.
