Fionn O'Donovan

I'm a Philosophy Lecturer at the University of Winchester with interests in Ethics and Politics.

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

Important thread.

Based on this and my own experiences at A&E, I think improvements to (some) triaging systems are definitely possible, and would be a very worthwhile investment.

[Kathryn Porter @KathrynPorter26]

This really worries me

A month ago in Wales I suffered a ruptured aneurysm in my abdomen. I lost over 2 units of blood

But the Welsh ambulance service refused to send an ambulance. I was still breathing so apparently didn't need one

I spent 7 hours lying on the ground in a car park. Every time I moved I threw up from the pain. The owners of the car park called 999 6x

One of the people there was a fireman. He couldn't believe that 999 treated each call as a separate incident and couldn't see the details or link to previous calls. He was frustrated because they could see I was seriously ill but you can't see internal bleeding and so there was no way to persuade 999 that it actually was an emergency

Eventually my husband arrived by taxi, journey of more than 3 hours from our home

He gave me my pain meds (the car park people were worried about liability and I was too ill to get them myself). This meant I was able to crawl into the car and he drove me to A&E

He got me into a wheelchair. We waited 75 minutes to see a doctor. I was shivering, heaped with blankets and threw up all over the floor

As soon as a doctor looked at me I was taken straight to resus. The next day I was transfered by blue light ambulance to another hospital, had a blood transfusion and spent 5 days on the high dependency unit

If my husband hadn't been able to come and look after me I have no idea how I would have survived. As it was I nearly didn't

I would not have been able to get myself to hospital nor would I have been able to log into some digital triage system

This scheme seems to assume if you're seriously ill you'll arrive by ambulance and if not you're well enough to navigate a digital portal

My experience suggests that's a dangerous assumption

A week later, back home in England I had another ruptured aneurysm. This time an ambulance came in 2 hours and again I was taken straight to resus

It wasn't the same because I had a recent diagnosis of a ruptured aneurysm so we could tell 999 I was almost certainly bleeding internally. But I was too ill to get myself down the stairs and out to the car. We still needed that ambulance and I still wouldn't have been able to fiddle around with an ipad

Proper triage REQUIRES an actual doctor to look at the patient. It takes a matter of minutes to differentiate between a life threatening emergency and not a life threatening emergency. That's not minutes to get a diagnosis but to know that the person is stable or not stable and if not that needs immediate attention

Seriously ill people can't do it themselves. It doesn't matter how smart or articulate they are normally. Or how tough. Expecting people to manage their own emergency care isn't what a modern health service should do

https://t.co/RMi7L44fUy

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

@Pseudomastix @2Philosophical_ If it's just one of the many things we're drawn to, it's hard to see why we should be willing to sacrifice goods/our own wellbeing for its sake.

I think a lot of problems go away if you instead count truth as one good among many. It's very important, but not all-important.

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

@Pseudomastix @2Philosophical_ Is it part of your view that truth/believing truth is a good?

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

@PAHoyeck This is validating, as I got to about 2/3 of the way through and gave up. I believed the reviews saying it was good even while reading it. But now, taking a step back, it's just bad.

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

@OpusPublicum Fair enough! I had to study it for A-Level which may also have prejudiced me against it

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

@CrispinSartwell Not sure how/why you'd interpret MacIntyre as a linguistic idealist?

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

@stackerco Alasdair MacIntyre, "After Virtue"

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

@Tripple____M IMO the XI would be:

Raya, Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori, Rice, Ramsey, Ozil, Alexis, Saka, Giroud

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

@LatFilosof Sure - contemporary skeptics understandably love Hume, but I think there is more to philosophy than just knocking down bad ideas. The truly inspirational ones can both destroy and build!

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

@JesusIsLord0405 Which particular issues are you unsure about/which are the ones you're most concerned about?

I will pray for you and hope you can get through this.

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

It is precisely *because* we use such contrasts to demonstrate conceptual understanding that, when we see the AI doing this, we get the impression that the AI understands.

But the ability to parrot a definition/basic conceptual or trivial truths is not particularly impressive.

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

One of the problems with AI writing at the moment:

"A is not B or C, it's D".

It's an over-used sentence structure. Worse, the mention of B and C is usually pointless. It is usually trivial that A is not B/C, and no serious person or thinker will have ever said A is B or C.

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

I appreciate the value of some contrasts for the sake of clarification. We say what things are not to clarify what they are. But the AI presents these humble clarifications as though they were substantive, interesting theses - which they are not.

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

What appears to me quite dangerous here is that, particularly in cases of young people who have a lot of potential to change/adjust their character and behaviour, we may be giving up far too early.

It is not humane to prematurely conclude that someone is unsavable.

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

Some distinctions:

-Someone can certainly *feel* they are at a dead end.

-Whether they in fact *are* at such a dead end is another matter.

-If some kind of treatment/cure has even a small chance of working, what then? How would we know that no treatment could work?

[Jade Stanton @jadethebpdcoach]

“The patient described his life as ‘joyless’. He felt very lonely, was deeply unhappy and derived no enjoyment from anything. He was unable to connect with peers and find where he fit in in society, and felt misunderstood by others. He was troubled by the fact that he could see his peers developing while he was unable to put his capabilities to use, and had reached a dead end.”

No teenager has reached a “dead end” with their autism, anxiety, depression, or mood disorder. That’s not a thing.

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

It seems like, after 11 years, many of Trump's fans are finally realising how dangerous and unfit for office he has been all along.

11 years too late, I'm afraid.

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

@PAHoyeck Can you give a link please?

[Fionn O'Donovan @FODonovan]

It's disappointing that the left tends to misunderstand how wars can be ended.

Negotiations are, ofc, part of the story, but most leverage for negotiation is earned on the battlefield. In reality, good will alone is almost never worth anything in serious conflict-ending talks.

[Robert Lyman 🇺🇦 @robert_lyman]

Military historian here: this is a widespread but erroneous assumption, propagated by people who don’t understand war.

Wars are won by winning them, in most cases by bringing about the military defeat of the enemy.

And, by the way, if you think that Iran was going to give up its millenarian fantasies because of a deal with Oman, you don’t understand jihad and shouldn’t be the chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee.