Medical Malpractice Assignment
Everyone in the medical community goes into it wanting to help people and save lives. Students literally spend so many hours and dollars trying to become doctors and nurses, because they are passionate about it. Sometimes. However, things can go wrong and unintentionally mistakes are made. A medical malpractice is defined by the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys as when a “hospital, doctor or other health care professional, through a negligent act or omission, causes an injury to a patient (“What is Medical Malpractice”, n.d., para.1)” and this negligence leads to errors in diagnosing, treating or even the aftercare of the patient. In order to avoid these mistakes and to protect both the patients and the medical practitioners, there are laws in place. An example is the law that limits doctors to only working a certain number of hours to avoid burn out.
The laws of medical malpractice date back to the 19th Century English common law. It was the more general law that dealt with damage to people or property referred to as the “tort” law. The type of tort law that medical malpractice falls under is the one known as “negligence”. This law makes sure that when medical staff are not careful and an injury comes to the patient immediately or in the future as a consequence of the injury then they should be held responsible (Budetti P., Edward E., and Bartlett H. T., May 2005, para. 4). In order for the patient to prove that an unjust act was done against them they should consult with other practitioners and get they take on it. The actual doctor is not legally obligated to tell a patient if something went wrong because of the medical procedure or care. So consulting another professional about it is key. Also, there is a statute of limitation on the medical malpractice claim just as in most other judicial laws. Any medical malpractice claims should then be done immediately, more so while there is physical evidence to support the claim. There are various steps to filing a medical malpractice lawsuit, the first being that the plaintiff (the one filling the lawsuit) decides whether or not their injuries are due to the care they got. The next step is proving that they were in fact under the care of the accused doctor. Then the plaintiff should show that the doctor didn’t meet the appropriate standards expected from a primary care physician. Of course the standards from back in the 19th century have changed and modern standards now require that all practitioners be just as good and careful as the next no matter their specialty or location. The final step in the lawsuit process is deciding on the amount of money that will be rewarded to the plaintiff and this should be able to cover any physical costs that were a direct result of the injury as well as compensate the plaintiff for what the suffered. This monetary …
