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Medical Neglect Research Paper

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It seems as if medical neglect happens too often in pediatrics. Medical neglect is when a parent fails to adequately care for their child, when those cares are pertinent to treating an illness or physical injury. In the two years that I have worked in pediatrics, I have seen many of these cases. The majority of the time, it occurs with our chronic patients who are medically heavy, time consuming, hospitalized a lot, and the parents do not adequately take care of them. In this paper, I am going to discuss a case of medical neglect that I have encountered in a child who had received a heart transplant.
Heart Transplant This story breaks my heart because this child is near and dear to my heart. I have taken care of this child since the day that he was born. This child was born with a congenital heart defect that left him needing a new heart. He received his heart transplant about a year ago and since then, he has been re-hospitalized several times due to his blood work being off when coming into the clinic for check-ups and not gaining weight. …show more content…

One of the common medications that is given, is called Tacrolimus. While taking this medication, blood levels have to be tested every couple of weeks to see if the dose needs to be adjusted based off of what the level is. He has come in five times now with undetectable Tacrolimus levels; meaning that the medication has either been incorrectly given or not given at all.
This patient also had a gastrostomy tube placed due to being unable to tolerated feeding by mouth. He receives formula feedings through this tube for nutrition. Along with this patient coming in due to undetectable Tacrolimus levels, he has also come in for Failure to Thrive. With this, it means that he was either incorrectly being fed or not being fed at

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