Surgeries are always frightening for the patient, and everyone close to him or her tend to prepare themselves for the worst and pray for the best during the surgery; but sadly what changed an eleven-month-old boy named Trevor’s life forever occurred after the success of the surgery. This eleven-month-old child underwent successful foot surgery, but somehow ended up dead due to morphine toxicity less than 16 hours after the surgery. He was originally prescribed Demerol, but somehow received five milligrams of morphine twice by injection. The nurse testified she didn’t realize she was administering the wrong drug. The nurse’s medical error not only killed a child; it affected a family, the nurse’s professional career, and forever changed the …show more content…
In their delight the surgery was successful; however, what transpired next was unexpected. After surgery, Trevor was prescribed five milligrams of Demerol to treat pain; however, with inadequate information due to her carelessness, the nurse during the shift administered five milligrams of morphine as opposed to his originally prescribed Demerol. Trevor was later found dead due to morphine toxicity. When the nurse testified, she couldn’t explain how she made the mistake and, at the time of administration, it didn’t register with her that she began distributing the wrong drug in Trevor’s system. Sadly for the Landry family, the nurse only recognized her mistake after the damage was done. Peel Memorial Hospital changed their medication administration process for narcotics because of the events that occurred. Although narcotics aren’t required to be double-checked, the hospital agreed that it would be much safer to do so anyway in order to prevent the same mistake that concluded Trevor’s life. After the trial, Mr. and Mrs. Landry stated they’ll always have Trevor in their hearts, but needed to start alleviating the pain and try to carry on. The Landrys also hope that the hospital learns from this and to let people know to always ask questions when hospitalized, whether it’s for himself or herself or for a loved
The initial problem with Lewis Blackman's case was that lewis was administered inappropriate medication. First he was given a strong dose of opioid pain medication and on top of that prescribed an adult IV painkiller called Toradol. His medication was being increase even though it was not affecting the patient relieve pain. The nurses fail to diagnose the patient's pain and reevaluate him on his pain status. Followed by that Lewis was having trouble breathing, that is one of the first priorities for a nurse. Yet they assume because he had a history of asthma, him having affected breathing was normal. Therefore, his vital signs, pulse oximeter, were compromised the day after surgery from 90 to 85 which is low. The hospital was not concerned
An experienced nurse Julie Thao was taking care of 16-yeas old Jasmine Gant who was about t give a birth. Thao is accused of making a mistake that had terrible and tragic result on the life of a pregnant teenage, unborn child, Gant’s family, health care, and Thao’s life. Thao mistakenly gave Gant an epidural anesthetic intravenously instead of an IV antibiotic for a strep infection. Within minutes of receiving the epidural IV, Gant suffered seizures and died. Her child, a boy, was delivered by emergency Caesarean section and survived. So what caused this tragedy to happen? According to investigation, Thao improperly removed the epidural bag from a locked storage system without authorization, she did not scan the bar code, which would have told
Treatment without consent - Charlotte, the nurse on duty, had forced James into getting the injections therefore causing him emotional distress. Treating a competent patient who has validly refused treatment could constitute an assault or battery. The legal provisions supporting a competent patients’ right to refuse treatment in Australia can be found in both legislation throughout all the States and common law. The Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights is also a helpful source of guidance as it reinforces the common law position that is based upon the principle of patient autonomy. The High Court of Australia first articulated the principle or refusal of treatment in Marion’s case, stating that a legally competent person has a right “to choose what occurs with respect to his or her own person.” Under the NSW Health Patient Charter, consent in regard to an operation, procedure or treatment is both a specific legal requirement and an accepted part of good medical practice. Medical practitioners are also expected to clearly explain proposed treatment, and adequately inform their patients on significant risks and alternatives associated with the treatment.Failure to do this could result in legal action for assault and battery against a practitioner who performs the procedure. Charlotte made no effort to explain or gain a consent from James.
The plaintiff in Ard v. East Jefferson General Hospital, stated on 20 May, she had rang the nurses station to inform the nursing staff that her husband was experiencing symptoms of nausea, pain, and shortness of breathe. After ringing the call button for several times her spouse received his medication. Mrs. Ard noticed that her husband continued to have difficulty breathing and ringing from side to side, the patient spouse rang the nursing station for approximately an hour and twenty-five minutes until the defendant (Ms. Florscheim) enter the room and initiated a code blue, which Mr. Ard didn’t recover. The expert witness testified that the defendant failed to provide the standard of care concerning the decease and should have read the physician’s progress notes stating patient is high risk upon assessment and observation. The defendant testified she checked on the patient but no documentation was noted. The defendant expert witness disagrees with breech of duty, which upon cross-examination the expert witness agrees with the breech of duty. The district judge, upon judgment, the defendant failed to provide the standard of care (Pozgar, 2012, p. 215-216) and award the plaintiff for damages from $50,000 to $150,000 (Pozgar, 2012, p. 242).
Medical error is the third leading cause of death in the US, right behind heart disease and cancer. More than 200,000 people die annually as a result of diagnostic mistakes and negligence by healthcare professionals (Washingtonpost, 2016). In the healthcare industry, even the smallest mistakes and oversight could lead to severe consequences for both the patient and professionals. A healthcare professional would be held liable for any discrepancies that causes harm. The following case will analyze the ethical issue and negligence that lead to the death of an elderly woman.
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
Chasing Zero is a documentary which was meant to both educate the viewer on the prevalence of medical harm as well as to enlighten both the public and health care providers on the preventability of these events (Discovery, 2010). The documentary expounded on the fact each year more people die each year from a preventable medical error than die due to breast cancer, motor vehicle accidents or AIDS (Institute of Medicine, 1999). Medical harm can result from adverse drug events, surgical injuries, wrong-site surgery, suicides, restraint-related injuries, falls, burns, pressure ulcers and mistaken patient identities (Institute of Medicine, 1999). Incidences of medical error have been reported in the media for many years. The most startling
Epidemics of surgeries can vary with people being very influential towards them or disagreeing on what needs to be done in order to help the person it is affecting. Over the past decade a certain surgery has become more and more relevant to young kids and adults that play a certain sport. Americas greatest pastime what we now call baseball has resulted in some of the most historic injuries. Such as that will never be forgotten such as Tommy John, Miguel Sano, and Kerry Wood and last but no least Stephen Strasburg. Now why cant people understand that your body needs rest? Your body needs to heal or you will join the list of people who have had Tommy John surgery. It is not something to be proud of, but it is certainly proven to help and have a high success rate.
November, 1999 brought about a release of a report prepared by the prestigious National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine (IOM) making medical mistakes and their magnitude of the risks to patients receiving hospital care to common public knowledge. The IOM concluded that between 44,000-98,000 deaths occur annually because of medical errors. Among a general agreement was that system deficiencies were the most important factor in the problem and not incompetent or negligent physicians and other caregivers (Sultz & Young, 2010). An excellent example of a system deficiency that leads to a crisis and sentinel event was the highly publicized overdose of Heparin to Dennis Quaid’s newborn twins in 2007.
Gladys Tantaquidgeon was one of the most significant Mohegan leaders in the Mohegan tribe. Throughout many years the Tantaquidgeon family kept the roots alive through the 1900’s and to this day. Gladys Tantaquidgeon died at the age of 106 in the year of 2005 at the home she grew up since she was a child. But during that time, she made very large impact to the Mohegan tribe and many more. As a result of the Indian Reorganization of 1934, Gladys Tantaquidgeon encountered the challenges of actively working towards preserving the cultures and rights of her Mohegan indigenous peoples of Connecticut. Her role as a community worker for the Bureau of Indian Affairs led to the exchange of education and societal changes for the Native peoples. Despite the repercussions of the
The medicinal experts on staff for the 12 hours that the patient was in painful distress while she was being drowned by the feeding solution, neglected to perceive that she was in trouble until it was past the point of no return. While this is obviously a blatant case of medicinal negligence, not all medical malpractice cases are quite so obvious, and not every single medical procedure with a troublesome result can be viewed as medical malpractice negligence. The essential prerequisite for medical malpractice is that the doctor or other medical expert has breached the acknowledged standard of care for their specialty in their geographic area, and that the breach caused harm to the patient. Doctors, as human beings, commit errors consistently, yet in the event that their mistake does not bring about injury or harm to the patient, there are no grounds for lawful
When an individual consents to any type of surgery, there are many things that can run through one’s mind. It is impossible to be one hundred percent sure that the surgery will be completed perfectly and without error. Humans are not perfect, and mistakes are inevitable. However, when a patient wakes up from a liver transplant surgery to find burns on his neck and shoulder due to a fire caused from defibrillation, as well as a failed liver transplant, there is justice to be served. Robbin Reeves woke up from his surgery to this horrific nightmare. In order to prove medical malpractice in Reeves case, we will prove breach of duty issues, the injury caused by breach of duty, and the measurable damages from the injury.
Surgery can be scary to many people, especially when they don’t know the outcome of the experience. Millions of people undertake surgery every year and the fear is always there. Many people have personal and scary experiences with surgery, and I am one of those people. My experience starts on a Tuesday, after a long day of pain at school. I informed my parents of my pain and it went from there.
Trevor disease is a very rare disease that is caused by an asymmetrical limb deformity due to the overgrowth of cartilage. During growth, ossification centers develop individually or together, resulting in bone mass increase. Trevor disease or (DEH) is a rare skeletal developmental disorder characterized by asymmetric overgrowth of cartilage in the epiphyses. Fairbank renamed Trevor disease as DEH. Another name for it is Dysplasia epiphysealis Hemimelica, or (DEH) This disease takes place mostly in the ankle or knee part of the body and it’s always going to be confined to a single limb. The medial side of the epiphysis is most commonly affected. Trevor’s disease is considered to be a congenital error in epiphyseal development that affects the limb buds
Lump in back on vertebral column should always be evaluated for spinal cord and vertebral anomalies.