...The case of malpractice of Stacey Galette vs. Winthrop University Hospital. Stacey Galette of 34- years old brought a medical malpractice to the Brooklyn Supreme Court for the malpractice case action of a double amputee. This lawsuit was brought against Winthrop University Hospital, Doctors Paul Byrne M.D., Frederic Moon M.D., Michelle Quinones, M.D., David Halpern, M.D. Craig Zebudia M.D., Cynthia Fretwell, Women’s Contemporary Care Associates, P.C. and Nassau Surgical Associates, P.C. for medical malpractice. The 30-year-old Stacey Galette went to Winthrop University Hospital for a laparoscopic removal of an ectopic pregnancy procedure on October 6, 2009. Prior to discharge, the patient complained several times of abdominal, but she was...
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...Medical Malpractice Statute of Limitations In this assignment we will cover the statute of limitations that govern medical malpractice. We will do such by identifying the statute of limitations placed on medical malpractice by Alabama and Massachusetts. We will discuss some of the similarities and differences between the two. The State of Alabama has very specific rules when it comes to the statute of limitations they impose on medical malpractice. In Alabama all actions against health-care providers must be filed within two years after the date of the injury occurred, or within six months of the date the injury was, or should have been, discovered. In no event may a suit be filed more than four years after the date of the act giving rise to the injury occurred. This limitations period applies to minors over four years of age. However, in the case of a minor under four years of age, that minor has until his or her eighth birthday to file a medical malpractice action In Massachusetts there are also certain statutes of limitations for medical malpractice that must be considered if filing a malpractice suit. All medical malpractice actions must be filed within seven years after the date of the act or omission giving rise to the injury with the exception of actiosn for a foreign object being left inside the body, in which case the limitations period begins to run when the plaintiff discovers or should have discovered the presence of the foreign object. For medical malpractice...
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...Medical Malpractice Court’s Decisions Recent studies on 232 court cases dealing with medical malpractice over a 5-year period (2006-2010), were evaluated according to medical discipline, diagnosis, therapy, relevant level of care, negligence, lawsuits and other criteria (Knaak & Parzeller, 2014). Expectations are high when it comes to modern medical treatment. There can be many arising complications associated with potential malpractice. Such complications are unavoidable and can definitely lead to expensive and timely lawsuits. From a patient’s perspective, malpractice is solely in hands of the physician’s liability. There is an established principle of ‘duty to care’ by Donoghue v Stevenson in 1932, where Lord Atkin identified that a medical professional should treat their patient with reasonable care to avoid foreseeable injury to a ‘neighbour’ (Bryden & Storey, 2011). As stated by Bryden et al. (2011), when a duty of care is breached, circumstances of liabilities and negligence may arise. Malpractice Lawsuits According to Michon, (n.d.) the definition of medical malpractice cases can happen when a patient is harmed by a doctor or any other medical professional who fails to provide proper health care treatment. For example, prescribing a high dosage of opioids and oxycodone painkillers that resulted in a few deaths could lead you to face 30 years to life in prison. According to Myers on ABC News, (2016) Dr. Hsiu-Ying “Lisa” Tseng was convicted of second-degree...
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...visit his or her RD at a hospital, private practice, health care organization or facility. Most of the Registered Dietitian’s have a graduate degree and are certified in fields such as renal, pediatrics, food allergy, or sports (Ansel, 2014). Since they have gone through highly specialized training, they are expected to undertake new challenges by diving into practice areas they are unfamiliar with. One of these challenges is to try and avoid being held liable for professional negligence. A myriad of cases that involve RD is when he or she fails to act in a reasonable manner. In order to prove that negligence it is essential to know the main reason behind it. There could be many reasons such as the Registered Dietitian did not fulfill his or her duty to the patient; neglected the dietitian-patient relationship; or patient suffered extra harm due to receiving wrong information from their RD. It has been said that Registered Dietitian’s have been recent targets for malpractice lawsuits. According to Sharon Palmer, RD, who wrote an article back...
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...Ethics Case Study XXXXXXXXXX HCS/335 May 2, 2011 Beryl Keegan, RN, BSN, MSN/HCE, CCRN, CLNC Ethics Case Study "Jerry McCall is Dr. William's office assistant. He has received professional training as both a medical assistant and a LPN. He is handling all the phone calls while the receptionist is at lunch. A patient calls and says he must have a prescription refill for Valium, an antidepressant medication, called in right away to his pharmacy, since he is leaving for the airport in thirty minutes. He says that Dr. Williams is a personal friend and always gives him a small supply of Valium when he has to fly. No one except Jerry is in the office at this time. What should he do" (Fremgen, 2009, p. 85)? Medical ethics is a subject open to much interpretation and is prone to many grey area's without definite answers. In the case of Jerry McCall, Medical Assistant, Licensed Practical Nurse and Office Assistant the rationale, ethical and legal, for not refilling a prescription without physician consent are justified. If Mr. McCall chooses to refill the unauthorized prescription and the patient has an adverse reaction, his employer, Dr. William's can be held legally responsible for the committed tort even though he is personally without fault (Regan & Regan, 2002). Ethical and legal ramifications are at stake; using effective problem-solving methods to assist with decision making can help to avert a problematic outcome. Qualifications Required for Authorizing Prescriptions ...
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...Brian Ardizzoni Michael Neil English 1301, Composition 1 25 November 2012 Medical Malpractice For nearly forty years, tort reform constantly becomes an increasingly controversial issue affecting the medical community, the legal community and most of all, the victims of some very unfortunate accidents. Tort reform refers to laws passed on a state-by-state basis which place limits or caps on the type or amount of damages awarded in personal injury lawsuits. Those who advocate medical malpractice tort reform believe limitations should be set on the amount of damages a plaintiff or injured party can be rewarded by the court. These advocates usually include medical professionals and insurance companies. Their argument is that too many frivolous lawsuits lead to high malpractice insurance, the increasing cost of medical care and a burden on the taxpayers whose tax dollars absorb the extravagant litigation costs for these claims. They believe doctors will eventually be unable to practice medicine due to costly malpractice insurance premiums which may leave many Americans unable to obtain much-needed healthcare. In the past, as the rate of malpractice suits began to grow, so did the rate of malpractice insurance. This ended up having a dire impact on the medical profession. For one thing, many qualified doctors ended up leaving their practices and focusing more on preventative medicine. In other words, they...
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...Imagine waking up from a double mastectomy surgery to hear the great news that you do not have cancer, to only find out later that you never had cancer and that your medical chart got mixed up with another patient who does. This type of situation was caused by medical malpractice and negligence by the physician. In this paper key topic that will be discussed is the definition of negligence, lawsuits, standard of care, malpractice, malpractice cases, and the law. Negligence is the unintentional or omission of an act that a sensible person would not have done or looked over. A negligent person might also disregard their duties whereas a sensible person would not. There are different types of negligence which include misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance. Misfeasance is when a provider does the correct action incorrectly causing an injury. Malfeasance is when a provider performs an act that is deemed unlawful such as performing a procedure in a state where it is illegal. Nonfeasance is when a provider fails to perform duties that a reasonable person would have fulfilled. In order for a person or party to claim that negligence played a part in an injury, medical condition, or death it must be proven. There are multiple key factors that must occur such as a breach in the standard of care and negligence is responsible for the injury. Standard of care is the level of care that a patient can expect to receive. A breach in care is just the opposite the patient does not receive...
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...Medical Malpractice and Quality of Care: With the increase in costs of malpractice insurance for doctors, how is our quality of care affected and what can be done about it? Rising malpractice insurance affects everyone seeking medical care and should be a cause for serious concern. At first, the health care industry saw rising premiums as only a temporary backlash from a couple of lawsuits with multimillion dollar jury awards. Therefore, health care administrators, insurance companies, and public officials worried little about planning for the snow-balling crisis that exists today. People blame greedy lawyers and generous juries for the problem; however, I feel that more than one cause led to our current situation. Today, administrators and lawmakers debate the best solution to this dilemma. Many suggest that by merely capping monetary damages awarded, malpractice rates will stabilize. I disagree. I believe that monetary caps must occur to help with the costs, but I also feel that patient/public awareness is essential to the stabilization of insurance premiums. After the first multimillion dollar award in a medical malpractice lawsuit, physicians still felt safe because they believed juries would place little or no emphasis on non-economic damages – awards unrelated to medical costs, lost salary, etc. However, the lawsuits kept coming and the awards, especially for non-economic damages, kept escalating. According to the New York Times, “the average jury...
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...State Medical Malpractice Creating Change Within Organizations HCS 587 Most hospitals, staff nurse and physicians biggest fear, is being sued for malpractice. As health care providers, we strive to do right by the patient, always practicing safety first. Medical malpractice, periodically referred to as medical negligence, it happens when a health care provider violates the governing standard of care when providing treatment to a patient, the source the patient to suffer an injury. The United States malpractice system has two objectives: to compensate patients who are injured through negligence by a healthcare provider and to discourage health care providers from practicing negligently Malpractice is a personal-injury law. For a person to be able to sue the plaintiff they must prove that the “defendant breached his/her duty by failing to adhere to the standard of care, and the breach of duty caused an injury to the the plaintiff” (Studdert,et al, 2004). It is up to the plaintiff to prove with evidence that the health care provider, hospital or clinic is responsible. In the United states, we have over 50 states and each and every one of them have their own medical malpractice statutes/laws. Majority seem to not have a good model to be an example of medical malpractice statutes, below Nebraska and Indiana’s statutes seem to be doing something right. They both also have similarities which may be why I choose them and prefer there way of dealing with damages...
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...Ethics Case Study Brenda Gary HCS/335 Ethics: Health Care and Social Responsibility February 21, 2012 Ken Parker Ethics Case Study The health care system of today is different from that of the past. Incidents of patient injuries that would have gone ignored by the family or patient in the past are now the basis for malpractice lawsuits. The issue today for most health care facilities is liability. The law on torte and negligence (2012) sees liability as a major risk not only for the physician but also for allied healthcare professionals working under the direct supervision of a medical supervisor, such as a medical assistant. When a medical assistant takes it upon himself to perform tasks outside the scope of his training or skills, the physician may be liable for any injuries or damages caused by the employee. Jerry McCall In this scenario, Jerry McCall, is an office assistant who has training as a medical assistant and Licensed Practical Nurse. He receives a phone call from a patient requesting a Valium refill before a plane ride. The patient stresses that he is leaving for the airport within thirty minutes and that Dr. Williams (whom Jerry work for) is a friend who gives him a small supply of the antidepressant Valium when he has to fly. Jerry is the only person in the office at the time of the call and has to decide what to do. Though Jerry may want to help the patient, he cannot. Jerry is a trained professional but he does not have the authority to...
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...Nursing Name: Liz Ortiz Health Rights & Resp Nursing In the field of health care, the word malpractice originally encapsulated the negligent mistakes or wrongs that a physician did. In the past, a distinct division subsisted between a physician and a nurse. The nurse operated within a well-defined framework that mainly entailed implementing orders from the physician. The roles of diagnosing patients, treating their different symptoms, and prescribing medication to them were solely roles of the physician. Thus, it was virtually unprecedented for a physician's orders to be criticized by a nurse since nurses (Peterson & Zimmerman, 2006). However, times have changed, and the roles of a nurse have substantially changed. Presently, nurses commonly assume some physician's roles such as patient's examination of patients, diagnosis, and their subsequent treatment without any arranged supervision of a physician. Nursing has evidently matured into an increasingly specialized, advanced, sophisticated, and independent profession hence expanding the roles of a nurse. Resultantly, the liability for fundamental nursing negligence has moved to its professional counterpart, which is malpractice liability. Nevertheless, obstetrical nursing is the field of nursing that is highly taxing since it involves the most delicate tasks of assisting doctors to handle pregnant women and delivering them of their babies (Peterson & Zimmerman, 2006). A situation in which a nurse can be...
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...April 18, 2011 Negligence “Registered nurses have more professional accountability than at any other time in the history of nursing. As a result, nurses must confront the fact that they now owe a higher duty of care to their patients, and by extension, are more exposed to civil claims for negligence than ever before”(Weld and Bibb, 2009, p 2). “Negligence is described as failure to use such care as a reasonable prudent and careful person would use under similar circumstances” (Weld and Bibb, 2009, p3). Common examples of negligence are malnutrition, inadequate hydration, physical injury was done, and it was the result of the nurse’s care or lack thereof. There are five main elements in a nursing negligence case and all five elements have to be proven for a case to be valid 1. The nurse had a duty to perform. 2. The appropriate care was not apparent in the situation. 3. There was a breach of violation of care 3. There was injury proven to result from the nurse’s negligence and 5. There is proof that damages occurred as a direct result of the situation. (Avery, 2009). Gross negligence is a more serious form of negligence and goes further than carelessness. While regular negligence is seen as a person falling below the standard of care, gross negligence is seen as complete failure to show care and in fact implies recklessness or a willful disregard for the safety of a human being. An example of this would be “At a nursing home, a patient with dementia is difficult...
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...Running Head: Ethics Case Study Ethics Case Study Keisha Black HCS/335 August 29, 2011 Robert King Abstract * The purpose of this paper is to review a case study and give an opinion on whether Jerry the doctor's assistance is using ethical and legal measures in his job. The paper will also review the decisions that Jerry might have made and major issues that may affect that decision. The paper will also give information on the malpractice lawsuit jerry might face and the readers advice to him, and what problem-solving methods might be helpful to assist in making an ethical decision. In the case study we will be reviewing Jerry McCall, Dr. William's office assistant. He has received professional training as both a medical assistant and a LPN and he is responsible for handling all the phone calls while the receptionist is at lunch. Jerry is now alone in the office and a patient calls and requested that he must have a prescription refill for Valium, an antidepressant medication, called in right away to his pharmacy, since he is leaving for the airport in thirty minutes. The patient said Dr. Williams is a personal friend and always gives him a small supply of Valium when he has to fly. Health care practitioners and organizations are faced with many ethical challenges daily, It is up to them to make a legal decision to protect themselves and employers in these situation. In this scenario Jerry' medical training does not qualify him to issue the refill order...
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...the past, patients had to rely solely on the directions and information provided by the physician in order to make important health care decisions. Patients were also limited in their access to health care facilities as well as hospitals. In today’s society this is not the case because most patients have the ability to seek second opinions, research alternate conditions/treatments, as well as rate physician care/hospital services through social media on the internet. A cancer patient in TN may travel to TX to receive treatment from a specific specialist and/or a highly recommended facility. Since the dynamics of the physician-patient and hospital-patient has changed, the relationship has changed but its importance has not. Therefore, it is essential that both the physician and the hospital facility itself have a good rapport with the patient in an effort to continuously build the relationship. A poor relationship between the patient and the hospital and/or physician could compromise the ability of the patient to trust the physician’s assessment and possibly lead to misdiagnosis and improper treatment. (Goold, 1999) Since the physician-patient is entered to with the consent of both parties, there are some cases where doctors can refuse to provide services to clients. This is could be due to several factors. For example, a gynecologist may refuse to accept male clients. The hospital-patient...
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...Medical Malpractice Tort Reform in the Healthcare Industry Medical malpractice reform, also known as tort reform, includes strategies to limit medical malpractice costs, deter medical errors and ensure that patients who are injured by medical negligence are fairly compensated. Tort reform has the potential to reduce health care expenditures by reducing the number of malpractice claims, the average size of malpractice awards and tort liability system administrative costs (Medical Malpractice Reform, 2011). Since the 1970s, medical malpractice has been a controversial social issue, which has caused physicians to have increasing concerns about the large number of lawsuits and the negative connotations that tend to go along with them. Physicians have started pushing for legal reforms to decrease the large monetary awards for damages whereas tort attorneys have argued that the negligence suits are an effective way of compensating the victims fairly and forcing the medical professions to follow a proper standard of care (Pozgar, 2013). An article from the Journal of Patient Safety estimates that between 210,000 to 400,000 people die every year in the U.S. from hospital medical errors and 1 in 14 U.S. doctors face a malpractice lawsuit every year (Corapi, 2014). Physicians and healthcare providers argue that the millions of dollars that are awarded in damages increase the cost of healthcare by passing this cost onto the consumer in the form of higher insurance premiums and...
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