Professional Negligence refers to the failure to perform a duty competently either by commission or omission. Negligence in a clinical setting can result to patient falls, burns, administering wrong medication, or harm caused by defects in an apparatus used by the health care provider. These all lead to injury to a patient, and in this setting, injury may include not only physical harm but also mental anguish and other invasions of the patient's rights and privileges. In any case, negligence must be proven to have occurred and may be in any of the different forms
- The care provider omitted to perform a Duty to the patient.
- The care provider was Derelict with the duty.
- The omission by the care provider was the direct cause of the patient’s
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In this case a classically trained pianist had the nerves in both wrists damaged during the drawing of blood for an arterial blood gas. She suffered from permanent pain when playing and that further led to depression. The patient, a 71-year-old female pianist later showed up to the Emergency Room with symptoms of congestive heart failure. The patient had been admitted to the hospital by her physician who suspected that she was suffering from an exacerbation of COPD, but he intended to rule out a heart attack, pulmonary emboli and pleurisy. To do that, he brought in the respiratory therapist who drew blood from the patient’s left brachial artery after several attempted punctures. The patient said the respiratory therapist was negligent in drawing the blood and punctured and/or damaged the nerves her wrists during the procedure and she screamed out in pain immediately at the time of both attempted punctures. The patient currently suffers from bilateral wrist and hand pain, tingling, numbness and cramping. Due to her injury, she is unable to play the piano without pain and cannot play as well as she did prior to the accident. She then added that due to the incident she developed severe …show more content…
In order to prevent injuries that come as a result of medical malpractice, we must understand how negligence/malpractice happens in the first place – through medical errors. When we are healthy we don’t generally pursue medical attention on regular basis. Patients do not usually visit their doctor’s office until they are sick or have injury. From my experience, most times when patient’s health gets worse, sometimes it’s difficult to recognize whether it was because of the current circumstance or because of mistakes or medical error in the treatment offered.
You can notice signs of deterioration by listening and visiting a patient or even be able to pass on message from patient to medical
What is malpractice? The given definition is improper, illegal, or negligent professional activity or treatment, especially by a medical practitioner, lawyer, or public official. These cases are occurring more all over the state than they should be due to human era. The people at the hands of doctors are being let down as well as left with disfiguration or even death. These cases are leaving people to question their surgeons as well as the nurses attending with them.
The negligence of this incident had a negative impact on the patient’s family members. Approximately 25% of cases involving medical negligence involve poor nursing care. Another negative aspect was patient’s family follow up was poor resulting in lack of importance highlighted on the pressure wounds. Ashley (2003) states nurses can be sued for malpractice, this means he or she is being sued for “negligence”. Furthermore, the nursing health professionals can lose its credibility among a community as they failed to provide a holistic care for the patient. However, a positive outcome was nurses were able to reflect among this evidence based practice to assist in better quality in patient
Medical malpractice lawsuits are an extremely serious topic and have affected numerous patients, doctors, and hospitals across the country. Medical malpractice is defined as “improper, unskilled or negligent treatment of a patient by a physician, dentist, nurse, pharmacist, or other health care professional” (Medical malpractice, n.d.). If a doctor acts negligent and causes harm to a patient, malpractice lawsuits arise. Negligence is the concept of the liability concerning claims of medical malpractice, making this type of litigation part of tort law. Tort law provides that one person may litigate negligence to recover damages for personal injury. Negligence laws are designed to deter careless behavior and also to
One of the problems with malpractice is that sometimes we have a hard time recognizing it. We may not know what exactly constitutes medical malpractice, or what qualifies as medical malpractice. Even worse, we often don't know what our course of action should
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
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.
Breach of Duty: if a doctor performs surgery on the wrong patient, they breached their duty by failing to protect the patient.
malpractice and negligence. The Darling's (Plaintiff) felt that the hospital, nursing staff and emergency room doctor all played an important part in the Plaintiff losing his leg due to neglect.
This proceeding before a Medical Review Panel, pursuant to La. Rev. Stat. §§ 40:1299.41, et seq., is brought by Jimmy Martinez against multiple health care providers, including Dr. Mark Kappelman, a qualified health care provider entitled to have the claim filed against him reviewed by this Panel. The claims made against Dr. Kappelman are mere allegations without support and proof. In a medical malpractice case the burden of proof is on the claimant to establish that Dr. Mark Kappelman’s actions in this matter fell below the standard of care required of similar health care providers. The claimant also bears the burden of proving whether any such alleged act or acts of negligence caused any injuries. It is the duty of the
The consequences of medical malpractice can be devastating: paralysis, brain damage, cognitive deficits, loss of limbs, organ failure, permanent disabilities, and death are some of the outcomes.
In that situation, the negligence perpetrated by the anesthesiologist was an error—possibly an honest mishap or a consequence of carelessness but not deliberate or criminal. One of the primary reasons the patient’s sister filed the lawsuit was the absence of communication and information surrounding what happened when her sister was permanently injured. If the anesthesiologist and archdiocese had spoken honestly and openly to the patient’s sister, it might have safeguarded them from litigation. In this case study, the archdiocese and the anesthesiologist could have “come clean” from the beginning. They could have taken responsibility for their mistakes, apologized sincerely, and offered to financially and medically support the patient for the rest of her life. In turn, the patient’s sister may not have sued them, the anesthesiologist would not have covered up his mistake (thereby committing a criminal act), and the admitting nurse would still be a nurse.
She said, she fell last night while playing volley ball. She landed on her right shoulder and heard a pop sound, too. She did not take any pain medicines. She applied icepack and felt burning pain. This was an interesting musculoskeletal assessment case. We assessed her right shoulder and compared with the left one. We found slight dislocation of the shoulder joint. She had good circulation in her right arm, no swelling noted in the right hand and the capillary refill was < 2 secs. Mary said, since she had burning pain, it could be a nerve injury, too. We also noted a slight swelling of her trapezius muscle on the right side. She complained of pain on palpation. Mary applied a sling to her right arm to keep it elevated. She may need an MRI to see the damage. Mary sent her to the urgent care. She told her that, since she heard the popped sound, the ER or Urgent care doctor can replace it. It will be a painful procedure, and she will need a strong pain medicine. She gave her the note for her teacher and asked her friend to drive her to the urgent
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)
Although medical negligence can often lead to a bad outcome, a bad outcome may not necessarily be the result of medical negligence. Medical care does not guarantee that the patient will enjoy a full recovery or desired outcome and a bad outcome may still occur in cases where the doctor provides exceptional care and takes proper precautions.