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Professional Negligence Case Study

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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 …show more content…

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

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