The Effects of Malpractice in the Healthcare Field in Today’s Society. “The real costs of medical malpractice have little to do with litigation but the lost lives, extra medical expenses, time out of work, and pain and suffering of tens of thousands of people every year” (Baker 1). The effects of malpractice in the health care field are a major issue in today’s society. Working on a more profitable and safe way to ensure the prevention of malpractice is what should be worked on to promote a safe and comfortable environment for the people. There are many errors that malpractice portrays in the healthcare field such handling medical situations: informed consent, foreign objects, and operating on the wrong body part. Also with these mistakes come major lawsuits against the healthcare system and liability on the doctors become crueler. Many of the doctors are leaving and that remain practice in fear and silence. Making sure that the healthcare professionals are fit to do the job is what needs to be accomplished in order to have a structure and effective healthcare system. What is malpractice? “Malpractice is any professional misconduct, unreasonable lack of skill of fidelity in professional duties, or illegal or immoral conduct” (Saunders 737). “Malpractice is one form of negligence which in legal terms can be defined as the omission to do something that a reasonable person; guided by those ordinary considerations which ordinarily regulate human affairs or the doing of something that reasonable and prudent person would not do “(Saunders 738). In medical and nursing practice malpractice means bad, wrong, or injudicious treatment of a patient; it results in injury, unnecessary suffering, or death to the patient. Hospital Errors. “Failur... ... middle of paper ... ...bs/md/hopkins-levy-legal-action 20130222_1_johns-hopkins-hopkins_officials_levy. Joyce, Sherman. "Medical Malpractice Litigation." Gerdes, Louise. Medicine. Detroit: Christine Nasso, 2008. 36-44. Levy, Paul. "Sunday Dialogue: Handling Medical Errors." The New York Times. 14 Oct 2013: 1-3 Medical News Today. 19 Jul.2013. MediLexicon International Ltd. 24Mar.2014. Suransky, Sasha. "Medical Malprctice Reform Will Not Improve." Gerdes, Louise. Medicine. Detroit: Christine Nasso, 2008. 45-52. Walker, Andrea. "Doctors leaving foreign objects in patients." The Baltimore Sun. 28 Dec. 2012: 1
Explain the issue or dilemma using information from the readings in the book and other sources.
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 compensate victims for any negligence.
Medical malpractice is like a virus that spreads contagiously and has been going on for many years. This phenomenon has caused deaths, diseases, and injuries due to the negligence of medical professionals towards their patients. Hospitals are losing their reputation and doctors are losing lots of their money. Usually after the doctor does something wrong, the patient should file a lawsuit against them and the hospital. One way to prevent malpractice is to pick younger doctors who are more careful with what they are doing. Malpractice is an occurrence that should be stopped soon or many injuries could occur to the patient due to the doctor’s negligence.
Medical error is the failure of a planned action to be completed as intended or the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim (AHRQ, 2000); whether or not it is evident or harmful to the patient. Medical errors can occur anywhere in the health care system. They can occur in hospitals as well as in outpatient settings.
Insight into the concept of malpractice was identified using Walker and Avant’s concept analysis.
Medical malpractice cases are difficult for the families who have lost their loved one or have suffered from severe injuries. No one truly wins in complicated court hearings that consist of a team of litigation attorneys for both the defendant and plaintiff(s). During the trial, evidence supporting malpractice allegations have to be presented so that the court can make a decision if the physician was negligent resulting in malpractice, or if the injury was unavoidable due to the circumstances. In these types of tort cases, the physician is usually a defendant on trial trying to prove that he or she is innocent of the medical error, delay of treatment or procedure that caused the injury. The perfect example of being at fault for medical malpractice as a result of delaying a procedure is the case of Waverly family versus John Hopkins Health System Corporation. The victims were not compensated enough for the loss of their child’s normal life. Pozgar (2012) explained….
There are many forms of malpractice that you may have been a victim of. Often people think of malpractice as a doctor doing something terribly wrong to a patient, but it is more complex than this. Sometimes a doctor can make an honest mistake. On the other hand, there are many people who work in the medical field that can be liable for malpractice, not just a doctor. Because the law can be difficult to understand, there are medical malpractice lawyers to assist those who have been injured. The following are a few situations that may apply to you or a loved one.
When evaluating medical malpractice, this can be performed by any healthcare professional. It is easy to classify this to be misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, delayed treatment, even not taking the time to evaluate a patient properly. When practicing medicine it is important that all measures be taken when a patient is showing signs of infection or having any adverse reaction to medication. In the case study below this is a prime example of the importance of checking patient progression.
Malpractice is improper, illegal, or negligent professional activity or treatment, by a medical practitioner. Not a lot of people know what malpractice is or how it happens until it's too late and it's already happened to them. The number of medical malpractice suits filed each year in the United States tends to vary but the overall trend is that they are rising.
Clinical negligence, also known as medical negligence is a classification for situations in which a doctor or healthcare provider acted irresponsibly, resulting in unnecessary harm or injury. Put simply an unreasonable action carried out by a doctor caused significant harm to a patient.
The world for the medical care field is one that has changed dramatically over the years so much so that medical errors have become the third leading cause of death in America. Unfortunately, this is not common knowledge to majority of the population stepping into a hospital today. This in itself is concerning because the amount of people who enter the hospital are generally sick, ill, or injured can sometime due to negligence of any other form of medical malpractice can become increasingly worse just by trusting their health care professionals. These doctors have the power to determine whether an individual live or dies, this is evident as thousands of people are killed by leaving there fate in the
In most cases, it includes failure to meet a standard of care or failure to deliver care that a reasonably prudent nurse would deliver in a similar situation. Medical malpractice is defined as professional negligence by a doctor, surgeon, nurse or other healthcare worker that causes physical or emotional harm to a patient. That negligence can come in the form of an act or the omission of an act of necessary care. Claims of medical malpractice are an important part of general patient dissatisfaction with modern health care. According to surveys, only one in 30 calls of inquiry to legal firms about malpractice actually results in the filing of a suit. Patients file malpractice lawsuits because of a variety of factors, including poor relationships with their doctors that antedate the alleged malpractice, medical advice to seek a legal remedy, and media advertising (Reising,
It is an unacceptable behavior, not expected out of a prudent professional. What is expected out of him is a reasonably skillful behavior—adopting ordinary skills of the profession with ordinary care. Thus, medical negligence means lack of sufficient care and attention on the part of the attending/operating doctor or the hospitals as the result of which the patient has to undergo mental, physical and financial loss, or even face death.
Medical malpractice is a specific subset of tort law that deals with professional negligence. “Tort” is the Norman word for “wrong,” and tort law is a body of law that creates and provides remedies for civil wrongs that are distinct from contractual duties or criminal wrongs. “Negligence” is generally defined as conduct that falls short of a standard; the most commonly used standard in tort law is that of a so-called “reasonable person.” The reasonable person standard is a legal fiction, created so the law can have a reference standard of reasoned conduct that a person in similar circumstances would do, or not do, in order to protect another person from a foreseeable risk of
4. The difference between malpractice and negligence is malpractice is a professional misconduct, improper discharge of professional duties. Negligence is omission of an act that a reasonably prudent person would or would not do under given circumstances.