An Essay on Clinical Negligence

“Medical malpractice occurs when a hospital, doctor or other health care professional, through a negligent act or omission, causes an injury to a patient. The negligence might be the result of errors in diagnosis, treatment, aftercare or health management.” (Admin) One of the most common type of claims that pharmacies face are negligence claims. Negligence is one of the categories that falls under the area of law called Torts. In the Hundley v Rite Aid case, a tort was filed for injuries that were sustained by Gabrielle Hundley after she took medication from an incorrectly filed prescription. The case involved a jury trial verdict involving Gabrielle Hundley, a minor child, against Howard Jones, the pharmacist, and the Rite

This duty was then breached. Either care was not administered, or it was ministered improperly. The quality of the care is established through the testimony of expert testimony from other doctors.

Negligence is the failure to do something. Many medical cases are filed as medical malpractice suits, “medical malpractice is professional misconduct. Malpractice differs from negligence because it is performed by a license medical professional” (Flight 2). The case of Horton V. Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center can be used as a primary example where negligence, “failure to take reasonable precautions to protect others from the risk of harm” (Flight 33), is visible.

In part 1 of this essay, we will examine the difference between factual causation and legal causation. In part 2, we will examine the judgements in both cases and how the courts applied the material contribution test to both. In part 3, our analytical section, we will examine how both of these cases have blurred the distinction between legal and factual causation and argue that the material contribution test has changed the path of the law for future cases.

Charleston Community Memorial Hospital proved a corporate negligence doctrine in the case (Pozgar, 2013). The court found a jury could reasonably find negligence due to the fact that staff did not test for circulation as often as needed, it was concluded that skilled nurses would have been aware of circulation problems, informing attending staff promptly (Law School Case Briefs,2013). There was no argument that the defendant, the hospital in this case, failed to review physicians work, or require a consultation. A jury found that this failure was within reason to assume a negligent act was performed, or not performed in this case (Law School Case Briefs,2013). A person goes to a hospital and within reason expects the hospital to treat them (Pozgar, 2013). There is a legitimate basis in this case to hold the hospital vicariously responsible for torts of its employed staff (Law School Case Briefs,2013). In Darling v. Charleston Community Memorial Hospital, the jury found negligence by both the doctor and the nursing staff, this was supported with evidence during the trial (Law School Case

A second issue is malpractice. Malpractice issues are always present in an unstable environment where patients will seek to remedy an incident if they feel they have been harmed (Hamric, 2009). It is important to always act in a reasonable way as a health care clinician but unfortunately there are always those who are negligent in their actions as practitioners.

Several questions were raised by the defendant after his trial, which resulted in him filing an appeal of his conviction. Although he admitted to shooting Mr. Villella, Kusmider alleged that there was negligence upon the EMT’s for failing to properly restrain Mr. Villella while being transported to the hospital. During the trial, “a pathologist testified that Mr. Villella’s death was caused by the gunshot wound to his throat, however, the wound could have been survivable (Brody & Acker, 2010, p.116). The issue of proximate causation came about during Kusmider v. State (1984). Judge Johnstone “precluded Kusmider from pursuing the issue of proximate cause before the jury as he ruled that negligent failure to provide approximate medical assistance could not interrupt the proximate causation” (Kusmider v. State, 1984).

Medical malpractice, the negligence of a health professional in diagnosing, treating, and or caring for a patient, is a specific tort law under the negligence torts. In the medical field, the tort reform has affected many people including doctors, lawyers, insurance company owners and workers, patients, and including other citizens. While large corporations, doctors, and other defendants are benefitting from caps on damages, that is limiting the amount of money that can be granted in court, plaintiffs, lawyers, and citizens are affected differently. Doctor Sage stated in an interview that he has, “never felt that caps on damages had a major effect on patients one way or the other” (“Could Malpractice”). This remark makes those injured question about

Our text defines a tort as “a civil wrong” and negligence as “a tort, a civil or personal wrong” (Pozgar, 2012). Negligence as it is related to healthcare is an unintentional commission or omission of an act that a reasonably prudent person or organization would or would not do under normal circumstances. Not following a recognized standard of care could be considered negligence. The case I have chosen to study is one from the Circuit Court of Baltimore City Maryland and is that of Enso Martinez a minor by and through his parent (Rebecca Fielding) vs The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore Maryland July 2013. I would describe this as a landmark, “David vs Goliath” case

Furthermore, as discussed in chapter 3 there is inconsistent application of the legal rules to determine the liability of the medical professional. Therefore, as previously discussed solicitors are usually hesitant to pursue clinical negligence claims by the means of SFA. With SFA being the only means for claimants to afford to pursue clinical negligence claims the removal of civil legal aid for clinical negligence claims has meant that many claimants are unable to access the necessary legal representation and in turn access courts for their civil rights to be determined. Consequently, many claimants are not compensated for medical injuries inflicted due to the negligence of the medical professional, thus the current system is failing to meet its primary aim. More importantly, the practical difficulties in accessing and in turn using the civil justice system for clinical negligence claims has meant that the Scottish Government is failing to meet its obligation under Article 6 and 8 of the

When considering the legalities of this scenario, negligence, vicarious liability, and physician- patient relationship are a few components that affect the outcome of a lawsuit. The amount of legal torts that were violated in this case was enough to cause disputes between patients and healthcare staff. Negligence is a familiar tort that occurs much more than it needs too. Unfortunately in this case, vicarious liability and patient-physician relationship are two considerations that influence this case as well.

The court ruled in the case of Coombes v Floorio (2007), that physicians have the duty to inform patients of side effects to medications. Many medications with varying side effects were prescribed to the plaintiff without informing him of the side effects. The plaintiff was driving, lost consciousness and killed a child. Consequently, the court’s decision is that the physician has a legal duty to warn his patient regarding the side effects and not to drive for the benefits of third parties (Grant & Ballard, 2011, p.

Medical malpractice happens when a hospital, doctor or other health care professional, perform negligence through their practice and causes an injury to a patient, it may be the result of mistakes in diagnosis, management and after care or health management. (Podgers, 2007)

Imagine you are injured or sick and have sought a doctor’s help. Although you trusted your doctor, something, something seemingly very in control of the doctor, went wrong. You are angry and confused, but also think of the commonality of medical malpractice. So, why do doctors, who are supposed to help, harm? Though many flaws influence it, malpractice can be, and often is unintentional. Most doctors aren’t trained to harm their patients. Inexperience and lack of medical discovery led to unintentional suffering of the patient. Personal flaws, like lack of willingness to abandon previous medical methods and shortcomings in communication also harm patients. Further reasons why doctors harm are socio-medical understandings that breed hate, prejudices stemming from a society’s belief about certain people, such as the medical practice under the Nazi regime. Additionally, displayed in the case of Ignác Semmelweis, judgement of one to oneself can be detrimental to any progress one’s ideas could make. We will examine these concepts through Jerome Groopman’s “Flesh-and-Blood Decision Making”, Sherwin Nuland’s The Doctors’ Plague and Barbara Bachrach’s “In the Name of Public Health”. Those who practice medicine are, unfortunately, unfree from the imperfections that plague all of humanity. Through these intimate and varied faults, doctors do harm.

The court system does not seem to base their judgment on legal elements and legal facts but a major consideration on public policy and interest. This can be seen in Barnett v Chelsea & Kensington Hospital , where the ratio is that the patient would have died anyway in spite of the doctor’s examination. To impose a liability on the doctor would give rise to many claims, involving many unnecessary claims. However, doctors’ duty is to examine a patient and decide on the plan of treatment, where in this case, the doctor did not even examine the patient. The reluctance of the court to impose a liability on public bodies can also be seen in Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police . The court was reluctant to impose a liability on the police force, even when the Taylor Report reported that the accident was caused by the negligence of the police force, as they let too many supporters in. There are enough facts in these two cases to impose a liability on the doctor and the police department respectively, however, the reluctant approach from the court towards public bodies have resulted in unsuccessful claims in these two cases.