Legal Case Study: 62 year old woman with skin cancer Essay

A nurse attending stated “during the morning’s second surgery, he actually dozed off. The nurse took him aside and recommended that he take a break, but he refused and returned to the operation.” The nurse here was in fault in more ways than one. This nurse should never allowed the doctor return back to operate on the patient, he should have been removed from the operating room immediately. The nurse should have

Medical error is the third leading cause of death in the US, right behind heart disease and cancer. More than 200,000 people die annually as a result of diagnostic mistakes and negligence by healthcare professionals (Washingtonpost, 2016). In the healthcare industry, even the smallest mistakes and oversight could lead to severe consequences for both the patient and professionals. A healthcare professional would be held liable for any discrepancies that causes harm. The following case will analyze the ethical issue and negligence that lead to the death of an elderly woman.

In 2003, as an outcome of all the sentinel events reported to the Joint commission lead to the creation of the “The Universal protocol for preventing wrong site, wrong procedures, and wrong person surgery” (Mulloy & Hughes 2008). So, one of the ways that could have potentially prevented the situation from happening at the first place was implementing the universal protocol procedure. According to the protocol the conduction of proper pre as well as post-operating procedures are extremely mandatory. Therefore, by enforcing a standardized routine pre-operating procedure such as verifying the patient as well as the correct site for the procedure, by having the medical staff or preferably the physician marking the operating site with his or her initials before the surgery will be an effective preventive measure (Mulloy & Hughes 2008).

Discuss what is required to disclose patient information to family members, friends, and when ordered by courts or government

With all of the possible problems that could occur during surgery, a wrong-site, wrong-patient mistake is one that should never arise. Nightingale Community Hospital (NCH) fully understands the importance of doing away with these errors and has set up protocol to work towards this goal. While the protocol is in place, it is not fully compliant with Joint Commission (JC) standards.

When assessing whether a no fault regime is better than a negligence rule in dealing with the causes and consequences of medical error, it would seem prudent to first understand the meaning of the term “medical error”. Liang defines medical error as ‘a mistake, inadvertent occurrence, or unintended event in health-care delivery which may, or may not, result in patient injury’ (2000, p.542). The consequence of these errors (or adverse events) that lead to patient injury, and the method by which we determine and administer compensation for such injuries, has been the source of heated debate amongst scholars in recent

Confidentiality in the Healthcare arena can be simply defined as the moral and ethical duty of the Practitioner to keep all the patient’s bio-data under lock and key, and offer a disclosure of those facts that the patient is legally mandated to disclose or deems fit to enhance their positive health outcome. According to the Segen’s Medical Dictionary, “Confidentiality is the ethical principle that a physician may not reveal any information disclosed in the course of medical care, unless the patient who disclosed that information poses a threat to him, herself or others’’

The elements of the principles of confidentiality can be broken down into four separate categories: (1) Information provided by the patient is kept confidential unless consent from the patient has otherwise been given—unless it has direct legal implications or endangers the general public. (2) Informed Consent: is given freely, because the correct information has been supplied and the patient has sufficient information on the impacts involved. Information is otherwise given out on a need to know basis. (3) Duty of Care: Information is given out in order to protect the safety and health of others and the patient. Legal and general public health fall under this category. (4) Documenting Decisions: Consultations and actions that lead to

Disclosing medical errors is considered necessary by patients and practitioners. They are advised to disclose in the form of an apology when necessary and appropriate. When a medical error causes damage to the patient, it seen as not acceptable because a patient goes for treatment in order to get better not to get worse therefore it calls for the situation to be addressed. When a medical error is not disclosed, the fellow peers who have witnessed the error must decide whether they should remain silent and keep the error to themselves or reveal the error to the higher up, although it would be in good faith to report the medical error to a higher up, unless it has caused harm or long-term damage to the patient. (Youngson. p. 69) There are many hospitals that the practitioners keep the errors made to themselves and do not disclose the medical errors to the families of patients or the patients themselves. Medical errors become a topic of conversation if the family of a patient or the patient themselves become aware about the error. Medical errors are something that should be disclosed in a good faith manner

Health care professionals are subject to a multitude of professional, legal, and ethical responsibilities which call for personal judgment to be utilized in such a manner as to protect clients as well as public wellness and interests. Overall considerations in handling such duties may be considered to be respect of a client’s autonomy, confidence, and recognition of obligations owed to all clients. While the aforementioned acts fall within the professional realm, there are also legal implications that guide care. Therefore, it can be said that ethical considerations occur in observation of legal responsibilities. Confidential information is perceived as private facts which are disclosed with the

In this paper, I will discuss the principles that permit disclosure of protected health information with or without the patient’s consent for each of the four categories, government agencies, legal agencies or representatives and research groups. I will also state whether I feel privacy safeguards are adequate to support those principles.

Even if no one found out about this mistake, eventually it could happen again if you don’t take the necessary steps to correct your mistake, and this time it could be deadly for your patient.

Wrong site, wrong procedure, and wrong patient errors are avoidable safety issues. Nearly 1.9 trillion dollars are spent on medical errors each year in the United States (Catalano & Fickenscher, 2008). Between 1995 and 2007, 691 wrong-site surgeries have been reported to The Joint Commission's Sentinel Event data repository (AHC Media LLC, 2008). In 2003 in response to the outcry for better patient safety The Joint Commission

It is human nature to make mistakes; however, mistakes that cause harm to someone else could be considered negligence. In the case with Mr. Benson in the Neighborhood Newspaper article, a mistake was made that was irreversible. He went into the hospital to have his leg amputated, and the doctor amputated the wrong leg. The question is was the doctor negligent in his practice? Is the amputation of the wrong leg considered to be malpractice on the doctor’s part? This paper will differentiate between negligence, gross negligence, and malpractice. After differentiating between these terms, it will be determined if the doctor operating on Mr. Benson was considered to be negligent, gross negligent or was this mistake malpractice.

Inexperience and ignorance are two factors that can result in unintentional harm to a patient. For instance, foolish mistakes made out of