News: US clinic halts liver transplants

I agreed with a previous post on here about how shows like Grey's Anatomy--which depict grossly unethical behavior as every day occurences--give the public a slanted view of medicine. However I find it funny that one of the problems with Grey's was its depiction of a conflict of interest in an organ transplant decision: "In real life, hospitals go to great lengths to prevent exactly these types of conflicts of interest, barring doctors from approaching patients directly and designating statewide organizations instead of individual hospitals to distribute organs." Then a day later I read about this scandal in California.

A hospital in California has suspended its liver transplant programme, saying doctors arranged an operation for a Saudi who was low on a priorities list. Los Angeles' St Vincent Medical Center said the fee paid for the operation was about 30% higher than the usual charge. "This event appears to involve an individual who received a liver that was designated for transplantation in another patient," Gus Valdespino, president of St Vincent Medical Center, said in a statement.