Expectant fathers will no longer crowd Duke Hospital delivery rooms with video cameras, due to a recent policy forbidding the use of still or video cameras during delivery.
The Medical Center created the policy in July to protect the confidentiality of patients and staff, said Kate Diamond, nurse manager of the Birthing Center.
"What we did was identify, over the past few years, issues of confidentiality [among staff]," she said. "If someone is there videotaping, some personal information about the patients may discussed by caregivers."
Once the Birthing Center opens in January, all delivery-related procedures will be performed in the same room. Diamond said that videotaping will be allowed after the baby is in stable condition. Even then, however, written consent of the staff is needed.
Another reason for the policy is that while operating video cameras, observers are distracted from coaching the mother during delivery, she said.
But, some observers claim, the decision may have been motivated by an anxiousness to avoid lawsuits.
Despite a currently pending lawsuit, Diamond said that liability concerns "appear to me as an unrelated issue."
In November 1997, Peter Cruz was videotaping the birth of his twin sons. During the delivery, a nurse allegedly snipped off the index finger of one son and an intern allegedly punctured the esophagus of the other. Both children recovered, but the Cruz family are suing the University, using the videotape as evidence.
Thomas Metzloff, a professor in the School of Law who focuses on medical malpractice, said that a videotaped record may actually benefit doctors in malpractice suits. "It's better to have more information than someone's recollection [at a trial] two or three years later," he said.
He also indicated that a videotape is probably not vital to demonstrating that injuries such as those in the Cruz suit took place. "Proving injury is pretty straightforward," Metzloff said,
He agreed, however, that banning cameras could lessen doctors' distractions.
Michael O'Foghludha, a personal injury lawyer with the Durham-based law firm of Pulley, Watson, King and Lischen, emphasized parents' right to videotape a birth. "Parents should have the right to video their own child as long as it does not conflict with the medical care the child is receiving," he said. "Parents are there simply to record the moment."
O'Foghludha explained that parents do not record a birth because they are expecting problems; they simply want to preserve the moment.
Diamond said that she has not heard of any complaints since the policy was instituted. Additionally, she said that there is a "high liability in the field."
The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology's Committee on Professional Liability discourages videotaping of any medical or surgical procedure.
"If an institution allows such recording, however, the written consent of patient and healthcare personnel should be obtained in advance," the committee stated in a September 1998 press release.
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