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The Morris V. Childress Case

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Throughout the midst of life, there are several incidental touching “accidents” that one can disregard. Sometimes people bump arms or brush hands when walking past one another. For example, one may give a person a high five. There is no expressed consent to that touching, but there is implied consent when the other person raises their hand. The person initiating the high five did not commit an assault and battery. In the health care field, there are misconducts that are not deemed as “accidents” and are instead considered a “battery.” A battery is an intentional tort relating to the act of touching a person without legal authority or permission (Showalter). In a trial taken place at the Supreme Court of Minnesota, a consent case arose from …show more content…

The examination of the patient’s right ear included a large perforation in the lower portion of the drum membrane and a large polyp in the middle ear, which indicated that some of the auditory ossicles were diseased. The physician also examined the plaintiff’s left ear, but lacked a proper diagnosis because her ear was in pain during the examination from an “unrelated infection.” The patient’s primary care physician, Dr. Davidson, was asked to attend the operation before undergoing surgery to watch over the plaintiff. There was a “hiccup” during the operation that veered the patient’s surgery when a small perforation was discovered high up in the drum membrane, hooded with granulated edges, and the bone of the inner wall of the middle ear was diseased and dead. Therefore, the defendant made the choice to perform surgery on the left ear instead and designate other surgery to the right ear.

Her physicians did not indicate any concerns with the left ear before surgery. The plaintiff’s primary care physician and surgeon should have re-examined her left ear once the infection passed. Honestly, the defendant breached his duty when he failed to compare both ears again. That failure was a blatant sign that something would go wrong with infected ear because it was neglected. Although the left ear was more diseased than the right ear,

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