Reporting Mistakes in ART-- Post-Class discussion

From the twitter class discussion it seemed as though a lot of people agreed that ART physicians have an obligation to tell the parents when there has been some sort of mix up or mistake in their treatment. There is really no completely good reason not to tell a couple. The only thing that comes close would be if the physician discovers late in the child's life that there was a mix up. Therefore, the family bonds would have already been deeply set, and telling the parties involved may end up being more harmful than anything, but doesn't delay the fact that the correct information should be put out into the open. I think that there should be some sort of society that all the ART physicians should join (run by physicians) that would have rules and regulations that are required to be followed by all physicians in the society. This would include a stipulation about being upfront to the patients about all treatments and mistakes, as well as safety and ethics information as well. The 'teeth' that the societies would use for enforcement could be a combination of a couple things if the misdemeanor is detected: suspension of license, permanent suspension of license, bad marks on overall report, or even the shut down of their clinic. Because this would be assigned by the peer-run society, they would have a better insight into how bad an infraction was, and they would understand the circumstances to a better degree than any state or federal mandate for ART. Right now, reporting to the CDC is voluntary, meaning a lot of information that clinics would not like the report is able to be swept under the rug. In these societies, reporting clinic information would be mandatory, and there would be more information required than was required for the CDC.
Another reason against state and federal mandates would be that it would most likely stunt the growth of these technologies. If more and more bars are put up against expanding the horizons, there will be less discoveries of new techniques and services that may have proven very helpful to the medical society of the future.
One thing that the state should have enforcement over would be patient well being, access to services and consumer protection (i.e. drug safety).

Kate mentioned something in class in terms of how physicians would handle telling the couple the truth if there was a mix up in the IVF treatments-- using a M&M Committee to be able to explain the situation and allow them to help the physician know how to go about the next steps. This would give the physician an outlet where he/she is not judged/accused, but allow him/her to get further insight into the best manner to inform the couple of the truth.