The American Fear of Being Sued Essay

Katz states, “the conviction that physicians should decide what is best for their patients, and, therefore, that the authority and power to do so should remain bested in them, continued to have deep hold on the practices of the medical profession “(214).

Freedom of religion is one of the most cherished foundations of both American society and the Church. The eleventh Article of Faith provides an excellent definition for freedom of religion, “We claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege: let them worship how, where, or what they may.” As society grows less religious, there are concerns that freedom of religion is in danger. In his 1990 Ensign article “Religion in Public Life,” Dallin H. Oaks states that “we must reaffirm and even contend for religious liberty.” The best ways we can defend our freedom of religion are to ensure that our government is secular and to exercise self-government in the

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

Every one of us has relied on a medical professional at least a few times in our lives. When we get seriously ill, or suffer a serious injury, we put our health in the hands of doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, fully expecting to be treated with a certain degree of professionalism and safety. Unfortunately, sometimes the expected care is not given, or not given to the extent which the ailment requires. In these situations, we can feel blindsided, confused, even taken advantage of.

History shows a pattern of change in relation to religious involvement of governmental affairs. As religion becomes less a part of American life, the court develops new laws to accommodate our new society. Look to the communities we live in presently and ask yourself if the American people are facing oppression of religious freedom, a freedom listed in our Constitution under the First Amendment. This spirals into an abyss of politics. Is same-sex marriage a personal matter or a public one? Is the Republican Party fair in opting to end abortion? Should a woman have contraceptive included in her health insurance plan despite the religious views of her employer? This is one of the areas in which

Throughout the history of medicine there has always been a need for shared commitment to ideals of moral, ethical and humane practice. The Hippocratic Oath, created by a compilation of works largely based on Hippocrates, has always stood as guidelines for the conduct of physicians. The Classical oath has and continues to serve well in preserving the sanctity of the medical profession while developing a basis for the respectful treatment of patients. However, this out-dated oath is not equipped to handle the modern trials and tribulations faced by physicians and health care in general. Many of its principles are simply unrealistic and inapplicable in today’s society. For this reason a revised version of the oath was written. As I will

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.

Defensive medicine has also contributed to the over-utilization of healthcare services. Providers tend to order unnecessary tests, medications, and procedures in order to evade malpractice

The new rules allow patients to participate with all aspect of their healthcare decisions. It focuses on patient’s involvement, decisions, continuous healing and patient control. The new rules are design to meet the patient’s needs. Throughout the years, physicians had more of a paternalistic view with competent patient’s healthcare choices. Even though, the physicians optimal goals is to practice non-maleficence and beneficence care, their knowledge regarding patient’s illness and care paternalistically diminish patient’s autonomy and involvement. The new rules reinforce those principles; it changes patient’s involvement, choices and preferences. It increases transparency, predict patient’s needs, continuity of care among physicians, institute evidence-based decisions and health records access.

“The only appropriate and realistic model of the Dr.‐patient relationship is paternalism. Doctors are the medical experts; most patients have little, if any, reliable medical knowledge; implicit trust in one’s physician is essential to the healing process; and doctors have the responsibility for our health and therefore have the duty to make all the important medical decisions.” Critically assess that claim.

From a personal standpoint I believe that the excessiveness of litigation is hurting the field of healthcare due to the affects in many different areas. It reduces access that patients need. Due to the misuse and disloyal antics of people making false accusations to self gain we will continue to see a rise in healthcare. I do not feel that all accusations are false, but I do believe that litigation has become successful due to dishonesty. In order for there to be financial distress for us all as a country we must flow diligently with each other. From a malpractice standpoint they need to ensure that their patients are taken care of to the best of their ability and that they are taking the precautions needed to ensure no

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.

Although all honorable doctors do their best to uphold the Hippocratic Oath, doctors unwittingly go against it when they emotionally detach themselves from their patients; therefore, they create unintended harm.

This can be read as a key ethical question to many healthcare case studies because of the errors and situations that occur. One of the explanations for this occurrence may be the overwhelming workload, chaotic environment and lack of individual attention prescribed to each patient. These issues can cause a disruption to the ethical principle of Beneficence. The principle of Beneficence calls to action the act of helping others and having compassion for the patients. This principle can be threatened when a doctor or caretaker is overworked and unable to effectively manage the series of patients and work they are assigned to take on. I believe that the admitting doctor did not initially catch the error of not calling for the specific drug need because he was more focused on getting Mr. Londborg stable and on the medication to treat his initial and present condition before worrying about the preventative medication. In addition, the doctor was so focused on helping everyone all at once that he was blind to the small details and loose ends that needed to be taken care

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.