Hippocritic Oath?

[CraZkid]

A friend of mine is in Pre-Med School and asked me a very good question. Once he completes his training as a doctor, if he shoots someone in a defensive shooting situation, he is required to give them aid once they are no longer a threat, right? This brought up another question for me. I am trained in First Aid. I am obliged to use my training whenever it is required or I can get into trouble. Do I also have to aid the criminal that seconds earlier was threatening my life? To me, a cleaver attorney could say that after shooting the criminal, giving him aid means that I never intended to kill them in the first place, calling into question my use of lethal force? Any experts have opinions/rulings on this?

[Phil306]

No, an attorney wouldn't go down that road. Its a bad position to take. Your shooting, to terminate a life threatening situation; either toward you and/or someone else. Therefore, your giving first aid could be used IN YOUR defense.

"You see sir, if I really wanted him to die. If I really wanted to kill him, I would have let him bleed out. I didn't. I immediately, after the threat was over, began to give life saving aid to him/her. I didn't want him to die."

Sheesh, you will have a halo over your head, to the jury...

Thin The Herd

[Tuckersdad]

Couldn't agree more - by your rendering aid you have proven that your interest was to stop the assault, not to take a life.

[John Ringo]

This is a difficult question to answer because every juristiction is going to handle things differently. Cases are going to vary widely from judge to judge as well. So no one answer is going to be correct 100% of the time.

However.....if things go horribly wrong there could be the chance that your job could be endangered. Being a licensed physician means that you are going to have people constantly watchdogging you. This is a fact of life. You gotta be careful out there with handguns. Especially in states like Ohio.

[eka]

If you are truely defending your own life or the life of another, you never, ever shoot to kill. You shoot to instantly stop the threat to your life. That is accomplished for the sake of this topic, by shooting the assailant. Shooting someone is deadly force, because obviously it could most likely result in their death. If the assailant dies as a result of being shot, that is secondary to immediately stopping the threatening behavior. Having said that, you target an area of the assailant that has the best chance of accomplishing the task. That in most cases is center of mass. The chest and upper torso area. Secondary is the head and pelvic area. You do not target these areas because they are most likely to result in the death of the individual, they are targeted because good hits in these areas stops the individual. You do not employ deadly force by shooting the person in the leg, foot, arm, or any area such as that to "just wound him". If you are truely in a deadly force situation, you need him stopped immediately if possible. If you shoot him in the leg or foot, it can be successfully argued that you were not truely in fear of your life and were not justified in shooting him at all. Not to mention, it will get you killed. If the assailant stops the threatening behavior prior to you shooting him, you must not shoot. If you have to shoot him, and he goes down and ceases to be a threat, you must stop shooting. If possible, you need to give him commands as to what you want him to do; such as "Stop!!" or "Drop the weapon!!" You give commands as a warning and to let him know what to do to avoid being shot. You must practice this when you train or you will not do it under stress.

Now lets say you have already shot him. I would immediately call for an ambulance for him and render some kind of assistance to him. Not only is it the humane thing to do, but when you start explaining to the authorities that you were defending your life. It will be obvious from your post shooting actions, that you were merely defending yourself and had no malicious intent toward the individual. It will show that you were not trying to kill him, but trying to get him to immediately stop threatening your life.

I know the macho thing to do, would be to kick him a couple of times, spit on him, and call him an ambulance in a half hour or so. Sure, most people would feel that way. After all he did just try to take your life. But, remember, you not only have to survive the actual encounter with the criminal, you have to survive the resulting aftermath. The investigation by the authorities and any civil litigation that results. You could manage to survive the assault and still lose big if you don't manage the situation correctly.

[Trapp]

Your friend will have an obligation to help him. You on the other hand are risking it if you do. Being certified in first aid does not require anyone to help if there is a situation. By helping you are also subjecting yourself to legal concerns. If you are put in that situation and the bg is still conscious, state that you are first aid certified, ask if he wants help...If you do something wrong you could be sued.....it is true, however stupid it may be....Everyone else has a good point by helping him though.. tough question, I guess it is up to how you feel.

[U.F.O.]

Devil's advocate here. Is it possible that any "energetic" attempt at 1st aid could be twisted around and used to try to prove a case that you may have had misgivings about taking the shot or shot without proper justification? I've got this mental picture of a lawyer saying, "Well Mr. U.F.O. .....what happened? You realized you'd made an error and THEN felt guilty and tried to save the poor man you erroneously tried to kill?"

U.F.O.

[U.F.O.]

Not to mention that unconscious, look like they're dead, shooting victims have a nasty habit of "coming back to life" with plenty of fight left in them, or so I've read. Do I want to be providing close proximity 1st aid support on a BG I'd just shot, within arm's reach, with my weapon holstered, if that happened?

U.F.O.

[John Ringo]

Here's something that might relate a little:

My best friend was in Medical School in the mid-1990s. He was living with a girl who was a little less than honorable. Needlesstosay, he came home one night and found her in bed with another man. My buddy got a little upset and basically called them every name in the book. He did not physically touch either party. However, the girl called the police on him. When the police showed-up he got arrested. This is what happens in domestic violence cases when the police get called. Someone gets taken away.

Well, my buddy almost got bounced out of medical school when the review board found out that he was arrested (not charged) for domestic violence. As you can see...being a physician is going to open someone up to much more flack whenever the police get called. I say that the first priority is to protect your life, but don't be surprised if people come down on you like a ton of bricks for doing it.

The world is a wacky place.....

[DarkKnight01]

this is a pretty darn good question, with probably dozens of different right or wrong answers... so i dont have an answer only want to comment on something someone else had said, not to be rude or disproove anyone, but being certified in CPR or what have you, does not require you to help someone... it merely means that u have the ability to do so if YOU choose... and also if you attempt to help someone and they happen to die or end up worse even by say crushing the ribs when doing CPR and they die from being unable to breathe coz of the rib that punctured their lung while performing CPR... there is a law called "the good semaritans law" that protects you from any legal problems... basically meaning that if you try to save someone and you fail nothing can really happen to you legally... at least this is my understanding of it after speaking with people that are EMT's (my uncle happens to be an EMT) however as far as what a doctor is "required" to do... im not really sure... to me it would seem quite silly to try and save the life of the person that just tried to take yours... i would call an ambulance and leave it at that... i personally would not attempt to save them... letting them die is probably doing a favor for the rest of the world...

thats my .02

[AUG]

Originally Posted by CraZkid

I am trained in First Aid. I am obliged to use my training whenever it is required or I can get into trouble.

I have just got to know. What kind of trouble?

Man you guys sure do worry alot about lawyers.

Can anyone name a single case of this being a problem?

Should be easy since all people in the military and all the police officers in the US have first aid training.

[45 Fu]

I'm with AUG on this one. This falls in the catagory of "things to think about a lot that really do not matter." If you really want a headache, what if you try to help the person you shot and they die anyway - does the "Good Samaritan" law apply to you since you were the one who inflicted the wound? Or what about this: you are not certified in First Aid or medicine but you try to save them - can you be sued/charged with practicing medicine without a license? See what I mean? This line of thinking is much work with little to no return.

The "shoot to stop" vs. "shoot to kill" argument is along the same lines. Here's what I mean:

DA: Did you shoot your attacker to kill him?
YOU: No, I just wanted to stop him.
DA: You shot him twice in the chest did you not?
YOU: Yes.
DA: If you only meant to stop him, why not shoot him in the leg or hand?
YOU: The risk of missing is greater, I might hit a bystander.
DA: So you were unsure of whether you could hit?
YOU: No, I knew I could hit.
DA: And you aimed for the chest anyway? Yet you didn't mean to kill him?
YOU: That's right.
DA: Are you aware that people shot in the chest are likely to die?
YOU: Yes.
DA: Please, don't insult us by trying to tell us you didn't mean to kill him when you knew you could hit him, and knew that death was almost certain with two chest shots and you chose not to shoot a less lethal area.

See? It's better to say what you mean and mean what you say. If your shooting is justified you have a much better chance of being seen that way if you do not stoop to assinine tactics like trying to decide on what the meaning of "is" is. Start trying to "clean up" the image verbally and you look like you are trying to hide something, or to make something bad look better.

Now my head is hurting from trying to sift through all this.

[riverkeeper]

use your Ist Aid, EMT or other less than doctor medical training in any non-professonal situation. My recollection is that once an EMT or higher begins care on a seriously life threatened patient they are not allowed to terminate care until someone of equal or higher medical training takes over - or the patient dies. I could be wrong but that is my EMT training recollection - but that was a L O N G time ago.

If you provide care, it must only be within the bounds of your training - so intubations are forbidden for you!

I'm not certain about off duty docs but suspect they are not required to provide care either.

There may be a nutty state or 2 where Good Samaritan behavior is mandatory but I don't think so. It is also my recollection that in virtually all states, Good Smaritans are protected by law if the conditions of para 2 are met. 'Good' Good Samaritan behavior is therefore somewhat encouraged by being somewhat protected.

[yorec]

Naw - simple really:

Deadly force is justified when the need to stop someone's actions outweighs the consequence of whether they live or die.

When thier actions are stopped we can shift back into a more peaceful, civilized, humanitarian frame of mind and consider first aid treatment. (IF conditions are such that we can do so...)

But after such a tramatic event as having had to shoot someone, I doubt that someone's being unable to remember how or when to give first aid will weigh much in court. But I'll bet you who have pointed it out are right - an attorney will certainly TRY to make something of it.