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Hall V Hilbun

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Submitted By widnerc13
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Hall v. Hibun

In 1985, a case was brought forward against Dr. Hilbun, a general surgeon who performed surgery on Terry Hall. She was complaining about abdominal pain. He consulted and operated on her for a small bowel obstruction, which she consented to. After he observed her in the recovery room, he left for the night. Throughout the night, she started having more and more pain and her vital signs were abnormal, but Dr. Hilbun was never notified of such pain. He was notified about another patient of his and failed to check up on Mrs. Hall and she later died of respiratory failure in the morning. The nurses at the hospital were never ordered to call him if things changed with Mrs. Hall. An autopsy was done and it showed that a sponge had been left in her abdominal cavity but it did not cause her death. Mrs. Hall's husband filed a malpractice/wrongful death case against Dr. Hilbun stating that he failed to follow-up after the operation and give post-operation instructions to the nursing staff. At the trial, Hall's husband called Dr. Hoerr as a witness but was disqualified because he was not familiar with the local standard of care, only the national one. After reading about this case, I believe that Dr. Hilbun was at fault for the four D's of negligence. The first D is duty, which there was a patient and physician relationship. He did perform an exploratory laparotomy on her for a bowel obstruction after she came in for abdominal pain. The second would be derelict, which means the patient would have to prove the physician failed to comply with standards

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...Hall v. Hilbun- The four D’s of negligence The four D’s of negligence are duty, dereliction of duty, direct or proximate cause, and damages. In order to obtain a judgment of negligence against a doctor the patient has to be able to show all four D’s in the case. In the case Hall v. Hilbun, Mrs. Hall was the patient and Dr. Hilbun was her surgeon. Duty is the responsibility that a doctor has to a patient. A patient has to prove that a relationship with the doctor has been established. In the case Hall v. Hilbun there was a relationship established when Mrs. Hall was admitted to the Singing River Hospital complaining of discomfort in her abdomen, and Dr. Hilbun was asked to examine her. On examination, Mrs. Hall was told by Dr. Hilbun that the pain was probably from a small bowel obstruction and that she would need surgery to fix it. Dereliction of duty is when a doctor doesn’t act as another ordinary doctor would under the same circumstances. To prove dereliction of duty, a patient would have to prove that the doctor’s performance or treatment was not up to par with the acceptable standard of care. After surgery, at 1:35 pm, Mrs. Hall was moved to the recovery room where Dr. Hilbun monitored her until 2:50 pm. Everything seemed fine at the time and Mrs. Hall was moved to a private room. After that Dr. Hilbun made no follow ups with Mrs. Hall or ask about her anytime after. He wasn’t in contact with Mrs. Hall...

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