When I was in South Georgia the group that I worked for wanted a diabetic keto acidosis protocol (DKA) to help treat DKA so that when a patient was admitted in the middle of the night things didn’t get missed.
What he’s talking about, “blind obedience to a protocol” is a boogie man that doesn’t exist. He’s trying to create fear. Protocols exist to help providers think through complex cases and make sure things don’t get missed that might get missed otherwise. Study after study after study after study shows that they improve care. That’s why we use them. They improve care because they ensure that things don’t get missed.
There were two versions of the DKA protocol that I wrote, a two page version without references and a ten page version with full references. Every step, every piece of the protocol was referenced from the scientific literature, often with multiple sources. And every piece of the protocol was a choice that could be modified if needed or eliminated altogether if it wasn’t needed or if conditions made it unwise.
I’ve written other hospital protocols. The last one I wrote in South Georgia was a heparin protocol.