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The law and legal system
Chapter 1 The Legal System
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Medical malpractice cases are generally sought by patients who have been harmed or injured due to poor medical treatment or mistaken diagnosis from a medical provider such as a doctor, nurse, technician, hospital, or medical worker. The measure of whether a medical provider was “negligent,” or failed to provide proper care, turns on whether the patient would have received the same standard of care from another medical provider under similar circumstances. While the majority of health care providers aim to exercise the highest standard of care for all patents, there are times when things can go terribly wrong. If you or a loved one has experienced poor medical care, misdiagnosis, lack of consent, or breach of doctor of the patient confidentiality …show more content…
If you or a loved one are a victim of this, a medical malpractice attorney from Moore Law Firm can help you navigate the ins and outs of the United States legal system to ensure that justice is served and that you receive proper compensation. You have already suffered enough; your experience in the court system should not be just as grievous as any injuries sustained. Medical malpractice, also known as medical negligence, can occur in several ways. In some cases, it is the failure to diagnose an illness.
In others, it is the improper treatment of one’s illness, whether that be through prescription drug errors and issues or mistakes made during surgery. It can also be delaying treatment for an unnecessarily long amount of time, which can result in the patient’s worsening illness or death. Medical malpractice suits can be leveled against all licensed health professionals, including mental health providers, doctors, and counselors. It’s common to have a litany of questions when facing these proceedings, and our team will take great care to provide you with answers to all of
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Instead, it is characterized by a medical practitioner’s failure to exercise due care in providing medical services. Due care is established by the standard of medical care practiced among professionals with similar education and experience within the practitioner’s community. A medical professional owes each patient a duty of care when providing healthcare services. If a doctor breaches that duty of care by not assessing the patient properly, failing to consult the patient’s medical history, failing to order the right diagnostic exams, or committing other acts of negligence, then he or she may be held liable for medical malpractice.
Just because you are unhappy with your treatment or results does not mean the doctor is liable for medical malpractice. The doctor must have been negligent in connection with your diagnosis or treatment. To sue for malpractice, you must be able to show that the doctor caused you harm in a way that a competent doctor, under the same circumstances, would not have. The doctor's care is not required to be the best possible, but simply "reasonably skillful and
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 the State of Hawaii, there exists a Medical Liability/Malpractice Joint and Several Liabilities Statute. This allows people to pursue a civil lawsuit against a physician(s) or other health care providers. It allows people to sue for damages in the event of an injury or death as a result of negligent behavior. In order to recover damages, a person must establish the following:
In the healthcare industry, medical malpractice has a history that extends way beyond the days of physicians carrying a black bag full of medication and remedies to treat patients. Health care has since evolved to digital technology that can detect and treat disease. However, before physicians had advanced machinery making medical diagnosis, doctors had their textbooks and medical judgment to rely on for treatment. Physicians are human and medical mistakes can happen, but should not happen due to negligence. With that said, medical malpractice lawsuits are not the latest trend in the United States. According to the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, medical malpractice lawsuits first appeared in the United States beginning in the 1800s. However, before the 1960s, legal claims for medical malpractice were rare, and had little impact on the practice of medicine. Since the 1960s the frequency of medical malpractice claims has increased; and today, lawsuits filed by aggrieved patients alleging malpractice by a physician are relatively common in the United States.
Not only do health care providers have an ethical implication to care for patients, they also have a legal obligation and responsibility to care for the patient. According to the Collins English dictionary, a duty of care is ‘the legal obligation to safeguard others from harm while they are in your care, using your services or exposed to your activities’. The legal definition takes it further by making it a requirement that a person act towards others and the public with watchfulness, attention, caution and prudence which a reasonable person in the circumstances would use. If a person’s actions fail to meet the required standard, then the acts are considered negligent (Hill and Hill, 2002). If a professional fails to abide to the standard of practice for their practice in regards to their peers, they leave themselves open to criticisms or claims of breach of duty of care, and possibly negligence. Negligence is comprised of five elements: (1) duty, (2) breach, (3) cause in fact, (4) proximate cause, and (5) harm. Duty is defined as the implied duty to care/provide service, breach is the lack thereof, cause in fact must be proven by plaintiff, proximate cause means that only the harm caused directly causative to the breach itself and not additional causation, and harm is the specific injury resultant from the breach.
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.
Day by day medical technology is improving, unfortunately so are cases of nursing malpractice. By understanding the laws that governs nursing practice, it will help the nurse protect client’s rights and reduce the risk of nursing liability (Sommer, 2013, p. 23). It’s usually necessary to prove that the nurse was negligent to prove nursing malpractice. The Joint Commission defines negligence as a “failure to use such care as a reasonably prudent and careful person would under similar circumstances” and malpractice as “improper or unethical conduct or unreasonable lack of skill by a holder of a professional or official position. Sommer defines professional negligence as the failure of a person who has a professional training to act in a reasonable and prudent manner (p. 24).
The statute of limitation refers to the length of time in which a plaintiff can file a claim. The principle behind statute of limitation is that lawsuits cannot be improved as time passes by. For one, clear details of the facts can be blurred as memories can fade and witnesses may die, go away, or lose interest of the case. Ideally, court prefers to settle the case as soon as disputes develop (Warner, 2010). However, for professional and product liabilities, with injuries may take time to manifest, many courts adapted different rules such as postponing the running of the statute until the injury has been reasonably discovered. The length of time differs among states and branches of law (Danzon, 1985). The long and deferred statutes of limitations lead to long tail of claims and contributed majority of medical malpractice and product liability (Danzon, 1985). In this section, statutes of limitations for medical malpractice in two states are compared.
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.
Explain the issue or dilemma using information from the readings in the book and other sources.
In short, medical negligence becomes medical malpractice when the doctor’s negligent treatment causes undue injury to the patient -- makes the patient’s condition worse, causes unreasonable and unexpected complications, or necessitates additional medical treatment, to name just a few examples of what’s considered “injury” in a malpractice case.
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.
Generally, medical negligence throughout the course of the therapy for an illness is outside the ambit
Generally speaking, negligence, error, incompetence, these are the words commonly associated with malpractice, yet many have no idea what the true definition states. Malpractice can be defined, according to the legal nurse consultant of Independent Medical Evaluations Inc., Jan Parrish (2010), “as a violation of professional duty or a failure to meet a standard of care or failure to use the skills and knowledge of other professionals in similar circumstances.... ... middle of paper ... ...
...one else’s negligence including medical malpractice from the doctor or nurse during or shortly after the childbirth, failed diagnosis during pregnancy, failure to test during pregnancy, or other incidents that resulted in what you believe to be the cause of a birth injury, then you are entitled to compensation. If you believe your accident occurred due to a doctor or nurse’s negligence, then you are entitled to compensation. Every accident is different which is why we personalize each and every case! We are professional; we will listen and spend as much time as you need in order to fully understand your mishap to get you the compensation you deserve. Our services include complete support! We will assist you with finding the best doctors, paying medical bills, avoiding financial difficulty if you are unable to work and regaining emotional and psychological damages.
Health care professionals are not liable for all the harms or complexities a patient experiences but they are legally responsible if they deviated from the normal standard of care that is expected of them. Canadian medical malpractice law is in place so the patients can recover damages in the form of compensation for the substandard or negligent treatment they have received while under the care of health care