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Medical malpractice and how patients and physicians are affected
Medical malpractice and how patients and physicians are affected
Medical malpractice and how patients and physicians are affected
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Medical Malpractice and Its Effects According to the American Bar Association “Medical malpractice is defined as negligence committed by a professional health care provider—a doctor, nurse, dentist, technician, hospital or hospital worker—whose performance of duties departs from a standard of practice of those with similar training and experience, resulting in harm to a patient or patients.” When people think of medical malpractice they only see how it impacts the victim or the person who is suing the doctor, but do they ever wonder how it affects the doctors and those who are in the medical field? Do they think about how medical malpractice impacts the delivery of proper medicine? Now I know what you’re think why should you care about …show more content…
A case won or lost still can have a negative effect on the life of a physician. When you are a physician you are most likely only as good as your reputation. Reputation plays a big role in our society as is and if your job is as important as treating and saving people 's live, you can’t have people doubting your ability to perform that task as perfectly as you can. In Loyola university chicago’s Annals of Health Law Volume 19 Jonathan Thomas states “the litigious nature of American society is influencing the field of medicine. An overwhelming majority of practicing physicians believe that their concerns regarding medical malpractice liability impair their ability to provide quality care, cause them to order unnecessary tests, and make unnecessary referrals. This belief is shared by many nurses and hospital administrators” (The Effect of Medical Malpractice 308). Medical malpractice affects physicians’ ability to practice good medicine. It Influences physicians’ ability to trust in their training and all of the years that they have worked to get to where they are in their field. …show more content…
There are many different definitions for defensive medicine none have been considered more right than others, but they all have one thing in common that defensive medicine is a means of reducing malpractice litigation. According to an article in Journal of General Internal Medicine which defined defensive medicine “as the ordering of treatments, tests and procedures primarily to help protect the physician from liability rather than to substantially further the patient’s diagnosis or treatment,” “Physicians in the United States have long believed that they must practice defensive medicine to diminish litigation risk” (Hermer, Brody 470). This fear that causes physicians to practice defensive medicine leads to them running test that are not necessary, but they would rather be safe than sorry and miss something that leads to their patient feeling like they didn’t receive the standard of care. This is further proved by a point made in the same article “While perhaps not “unnecessary” care, defensive medicine is meant more to offer economic and psychological benefit to the physician than to the patient” (Hermer, Brody 470). If you were a patient and your doctor was running all of these test like plain film x-rays, CT scans, MRI studies, ultrasound studies, and specialty referrals were being done for your sake and to make sure that everything was okay with you, but that
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….
In order for a client to successfully bring a legal malpractice suit they must show the required elements of legal malpractice which are “(1) an attorney-client relationship; (2) a duty owed to the client by the attorney to use such skill, prudence, and diligence as lawyers of ordinary skill and capacity possess in exercising and performing the tasks which they undertake; (3) a breach of that duty; (4) the breach being the proximate cause of the client's damages; and (5) actual loss or damage resulting from the negligence.” Mainor v. Nault, 101 P.3d 308, 310 (Nev. 2004).
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.
He said, “Studies of specific types of error, too, have found that repeat offenders are not the problem. The fact is that virtually everyone who cares for hospital patients will make serious mistakes, and even commit acts of negligence, every year. For this reason, doctors are seldom outraged when the press reports yet another medical horror story. They usually have a different reaction: This could be me. The important question isn’t how to keep bad physicians from harming patients; it’s how to keep good physicians from harming patients” (658). Like Gawande asked—how do you keep good physicians from harming patients? Even the best of doctors and surgeons manage to make mistakes that led to being sued or even worst—they get to experience the death of their
Actuaries are recognized for using mathematics in certain ways to estimate the financial obligations of a company. These approximations directly affect the company’s financial situation and outlook for the year. As any other professional occupation, standards must be followed to ensure the validity of the work being done. Risks of malpractice may arise if actuarial principles are not followed carefully. Actuarial malpractice has become a rising concern in holding actuaries liable for their work, where in previous years it was unheard of.
Explain the issue or dilemma using information from the readings in the book and other sources.
When a driver runs a red light and no accident occurs, the driver is still negligent, even though no one got hurt. Similarly, a doctor or other health care professional might deviate from the appropriate medical standard of care in treating a patient, but if the patient is not harmed and their health is not impacted, that negligence won’t lead to a medical malpractice case.
Paul Mountjoy, a reporter of the Washington Times, asks whether medical errors are ranking third in causing deaths in US. In the article, he notes that medical error complications are an emerging major public health issue as he reports that nearly 400,000 American patients die annually due to complications resulting from medical errors. The trend seems to be growing because nearly 10 years ago the figure was nearly 250,000 cases. This is according to a report by Dr. Starfield. Without much guess, this confirms that actually medical errors rank third in killing American citizens. Cancer and heart complications of course take the lead.
Studdert, David M. "Defensive Medicine Among High-Risk Specialist Physicians in a Volatile Malpractice Environment, June 1, 2005, Studdert Et Al. 293 (21): 2609." JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, a Weekly Peer-reviewed Medical Journal Published by AMA. American Medical Association, 1 June 2005. Web. 31 May 2010. .
Medical ethics could be so many different thing mostly bad.There's so many stories about medical ethics this this story about this girl. At the age of 13 she was diagnosed with a rare and fated type of cancer.The survived and was cleaned that didn't have cancer. Then 10 years later she fought for her life again, she had sergey. After the Surgery there was no where no sign of the cancer. There years later she married and she became pregnant because of her health history she went to a clinic so they could watch her pregnancy.She had to go back to the clinic for having a lung tumor. She want to be in the best health, surgery was not an option. Her baby was too small to be born yet ,” meaning too premature.” (Thornton )She wanted to keep treating her cancer but, the doctors said that should wait until 28 weeks.She waited and the doctors she it was too dangerous and they wouldn’t help.So they want to cort.The court made it distion and at time is was very ill. The court order a surguy but the doctor said that if she goes into surgery she might not make it. She refused, but the doctors could not refused the courts orders. She was rolled into the surgery room. she made it into through the surgery, but two days later she died. She ...
...r malpractice if a patient were given a surgery based on findings and it turned out they actually did not need the surgery.
Malpractice, negligence, and injustice are words that hold great meaning in today’s healthcare system. More than likely, these are the words my mother wishes that she could have uttered during her time of inattentive care. My mother underwent countless rounds of chemotherapy when she was pregnant with me because of a very rare cancer called Burkett’s Lymphoma. This caused for her to birth me at only six months of gestation. The doctor told her that she would have to choose between my life and hers. Like any mother that loves her child, she chose to let me live because she felt as though she had lived her life. Why would a mother ever have to make this decision when preventive measures could have been taken? How is it that a licensed obstetrician-gynecologist (ob/gyn) can continue to practice medicine when they are not effectively taking care of their patients? Whether it’s one or one hundred, every patient deserves the best care from any healthcare professional! My mother’s ob/gyn discovered that my mother had the admonition of cancer when she was
People must be concerned about it more in developing countries. Since there are lacks of the medical errors evaluation structures in some countries, the outcome is always catastrophic. In Africa for example, many countries do not properly report the data. In Republic of Guinea, there are no official data concerning the medical errors. In those countries, there are no risk for the physicians to lose their licenses because there no structures to control their errors. In the United States, the medical errors are big concerns; the reporting systems of errors are developed. Errors in the United States can cause to the physicians the suspension of their licenses and/or their revocation.
So although the patient can sue for malpractice, it will be based on laws related to the ethical principles, but not the Ethical Principles themselves. For example, if a patient feels that they were treated differently because of race, they would file a discrimination suit, which is legally sanctioned under other legal legislature. It seems quite complicated, but it is important to recognize the difference between ethics and the law.
After reading all the material from this module I found that legal risks, medical malpractice claims, tort reform, and defensive medicine impact the relationship between healthcare providers and patients, by making it weak, hesitant, standoff, and usually resulting in decrease in care or over care. The relationship between the doctor and a patient should be comforting, and comfortable, private and easy going. Kessler’s (2011) study showed that doctors do practice defensive medicine, and it also showed that the tort system helps reduce the use of defensive medicine and malpractice insurance. Doctors are practicing defensive medicine because they are scared that if they do something wrong, they use it as an assurance and avoidance behavior (Studdert