Legal And Ethical Implications Of Medical Malpractice

Legal and Ethical Implications of Medical Malpractice The rapid revolution in the field of medicine in the last century has significantly impacted the mode of medical practice, doctor-patient relationships and fundamental values of medicine. The physicians are at the crossroads facing many ethical and legal challenges in their day to day practice and on the other hand, the medical fraternity is becoming more and more dependent on technology and market forces that tend to influence the decision-making process of the providers. The fundamental obligation that the doctors must keep the patients’ interest above everything else becomes the basis for medical malpractice laws, which also gives the undue opportunity for the patients to exploit

Doctor should be negligent

3. Doctor's negligence should cause the injury

4. Injury must lead to specific damage

The John Parker case in discussion is a good example of gross negligence by the physician.

Case Scenario: Mr. John Parker purchased health coverage with Littleville Family Health Plan. He selected Dr. Susan Green as his PCP because she was listed by his Plan. Mr. Parker was diagnosed with Swinehausen's syndrome and was prescribed Pentamite (10 milligrams) once a day for three weeks by Dr. Green. The risks and benefits of Pentamite, as well as the alternative forms of treatment, were explained by Dr. Green and Mr. Parker consented to take the Pentamite after listening to the risks and benefits. Dr. Green both orally and in writing gave a wrong dosage of the medicine from one of her samples boxes. This negligent act of Dr. Green has resulted in the death of Mr. Parker due to a heart attack. As the personal representative of his estate, Parker's wife filed a lawsuit in state court against Dr. Green and the Plan. Ethical and Legal Implications Involved

Patient’s

Many health care facilities nowadays have constituted institutional ethics committees and have in-house or on-call trained ethicists to assist health care providers, caregivers, and patients with difficult issues arising in medical care.

2. When legal and risk management issues arise in an organization, the administrators or sometimes risk managers should work together as a team with the patients and their families to reduce the liability.

3. Healthcare organizations should set standards and policies in place and define rules of a reasonable standard of care, take written consents as and when required, avoid the provision of in hand medications especially with adverse side effects, Proper documentation to avoid legal complications.

The MCO is not legally liable in this case as they have clearly stated about the physicians not being directly employed by them. The MCO has a good chance of not being prosecuted because of the proper documentation in place, but they should contact a risk manager to go through the next steps to avoid such lawsuits and should run proper background checks on the future physicians, have written policies in place for a reasonable standard of