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Doctors And Manslaughter
I’ll present a few scenarios and I want to ask if they’re manslaughter:
A doctor ordered 500cc of x drug to be administered over five hours but misspoke and said 500cc per hour for five hours. So the patient got five times the dose in a fifth of the time and died.
Is this manslaughter and in a secular state what would happen about diyat?
What if a doctor is performing surgery snd his hand slips or something and he cuts a major artery or in the case of brain surgery a neurone which leads to death?
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5 Replies
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Doctors And Manslaughter
updated 2 years, 9 months ago
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There r many checks and balances in modern day medicine. When a physician orders a drug, pharmacist checks and approves it. Then medicine is sent to patient’s nurse. She has to check with another nurse to confirm it’s the right medication, pt is not allergic to it and dose and time r correct. If a mistake happens then it’s not physician alone who’s responsible. It follows a long and arduous legal examination.
During surgery a similar process is taken place before surgeon’s scalpel touches the skin. If a mistake happens during surgery like hand slip or sudden instrumt malfunction etc, then it’s considered a human error just like anything else. However if there’s a predispositing factor like surgeon was drunk, had tremors, then manslaughter law will be applied.
Very rare, in last 200 yrs, 80 charges of manslaughter against physicians only. (UK stats)
I didn’t understand how diyat will matter in a secular state? It’ll be according to the law of the concerned state that’ll decide how much compensation be given to the family.
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Thanks so much for this since I want to pursue a career in medicine so I’m just researching a bit.
For diyat I mean that qisaas is mandated on believers- so would this only matter in a Muslim state?
As in could something count as manslaughter in Islam but it not in eg UK law?
If we just take the example of a hand slip during surgery is that manslaughter in Islam?
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That’s v good, medicine is an excellent profession. May Allah grant u success
Qisas diyat etc only matter in Islamic state. I’m secular states, there laws would be followed and not Islamic shariah
Manslaughter is intentional harm without motive (hence not murder)
Hand slip is not manslaughter in Islam or secular law.
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Brother Ahmad, I give you a completely different perspective.
Other than a doctor making a deliberate mistake or due to extreme carelessness, any other situation cannot be manslaughter.
Doctor’s profession is risky and Allah is certainly aware of that. Also consider this, doctors make thousands of people get better and save 100s of lives, yet once in a while they may loose a patient.
Now Allah, as stated in Quran, multiplies good deeds by 10s or 100s of times, but any sin is considered as one sin.
So if you do the math, profession of a doctor is an easy path to heaven, if a doctor is working more than just for money. If a doctor works with compassion, with Allah in mind and does some extra work just for Allah, he is an easy winner.
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This has two dimensions to it, one is related to professional misconduct for which the state and the relevant professional body can take action and their requirements can be more stern, and other one has a religious dimension. As far as religion is concerned, there’s no point of Diyat unless it falls atleast within ambit of ‘unintentional murder‘, which can only happen if an act of intentional negligience has been committed by the person without any intention of killing the person, but that negligient act somehow killed the person. Misspeaking 500 cc per five hours as 500 cc per hour doesn’t constitute this act on the face of it, unless the doctor didn’t have had proper sleep or he was intoxicated despite knowing he had a surgery to opearte in the morning. All the details need to be taken into consideration in deciding whether or not it is an ‘unintentional murder’.
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