Introduction
The legal theory of medical malpractice applies not only to the performance of medical doctors, but also to health care facilities, anesthesiologists, and nurses. The main driving force of a medical malpractice is proving fault of a nurse or a medical doctor directly associated with medical care, but sometimes these other entities are responsible as well. Hospitals can be apprehended for negligence in the context of medical malpractice actions and they can also be held vicariously responsible for carelessness of their workers, especially nurses. In the case of Laura, the legal and ethical basis consists in the fact that the medication she injected the patient with later led to complications. This might have happened because of the physician prescribing wrong medication to the patient.
Malpractice Liability
This paper presents Laura, a nurse by profession, who works in the Intensive Care Unit at the Purple Valley hospital. Laura attends to a patient whereby she gives him an injection of Vistaril after checking and confirming that everything is correct. That means that the order is acknowledged in the records at the hospital and she works on the doctor’s order while ensuring that it is the right patient she is attending to. A year later, the patient returns complaining that the injection he was given by Laura has since caused him a sciatic nerve damage, eventually causing numbness in the entire leg.
In this case, inasmuch as Laura may be held liable for the suffering caused to the patient, the Purple Valley hospital should also be taken to task since when it comes to acquiring its medical staff, it should undertake sensible inquiries into the individual’s education, training, as well as his or her licensing. Thus, the hospital should acquire this information before allowing a nurse to work. If it fails to arrange a sensible inquiry in regards to a member of the medical staff, it might be held responsible under the corporate negligence principle for negligent retention or supervision in case inattentive care by the staff causes harm to a patient.
The hospital is held responsible in the case filed by the patient under the care of Laura because of negligence. It may be that the hospital had earlier failed to look into the credentials of Laura before allowing her to offer treatment or it may have permitted Laura to offer care at the hospital despite the fact that they knew or they should have known that she is incompetent to treat patients at the intensive care unit.
Furthermore, the hospital may also be held responsible for not protecting the patient from harm, not sufficiently undertaking clinical tests, failing to keep correct medical records, and failing to appropriately admit and discharge patients. In the case under consideration, Laura was instructed by her senior to actually give out an injection. After ensuring that the order by Laura’s senior was put in the medical records, she received the medication from the pharmacy and went through it. She gave the injection after making sure that it was the right patient she was attending to. Laura is blamed for causing harm to the patient, but the hospital is liable since she is a nurse at the hospital and is required to be keen in her undertakings.
Most common suits, including hospital medical attendants, are subject to carelessness and negligence. Many doctors and nurses ignore their patients and give them poor treatment. A lawful obligation in a common case relating to carelessness and misbehavior does not require the offended party to demonstrate a plan to hurt. Rather, the offended party must demonstrate that the hospital’s medical attendant has neglected to meet the normal level of competency as portrayed by expert gauges of consideration. As it were, the hospital medical caretaker did not give nursing consideration at the same level of competency as an alternate sensibly judicious hospital’s worker would do under the same circumstances.
With a specific end goal to demonstrate carelessness, accompanying components must be secured and demonstrated in the court of law with no less than 51% of confirmation: obligation, rupture of obligation, causation, as well as risk and harm. Nurses and doctors should ensure they respect rights of their patients.
A break of obligation can happen when the hospital’s medical attendant neglects adjustments for pertinent measures of the nursing practice. Benchmarks of practice make proficient rules to guarantee the nature of consideration. Benchmarks of practice can convey generous weight in the court of law. Norms of practice are utilized as a part of court to figure out if fitting consideration has been conveyed. Hospital medical caretaker’s practice should be investigated to prove a breach of obligations, while measures of the government, state laws and regulations, pertinent known court choices, hospital rules, approaches, strategies, and sets of expectations will be used to figure out if proper nursing consideration has been given.
Break of obligation can likewise be verified by master affirmation whereby the master depicts what a sensibly capable service provider would have done in a comparable situation. When a break of obligation has been secured, the offended party must demonstrate that the rupture of obligation brought about harm and/or harms. Without harms, there is no premise for a claim, paying little heed to whether the attendant has been careless. Hospital medical attendants confront a huge number of legitimate circumstances regularly. Thus, hospital medical attendants have a legitimate obligation to give protected and suitable nursing consideration to their understudies. To guarantee the nature of consideration, meet models of practice, and keep away from potential lawful obligations, it is essential that hospital medical attendants adjust their practice to suitable benchmarks of practice. The best safeguard against a lawful obligation is to be educated about the laws, tenets, and regulations that influence the hospital’s nursing practice. Medical nurses should secure their nursing permit and decrease legitimate obligation while considering patients.
Defenses Available to Laura
Medical nurses should try not to cause harm and make present illnesses or injuries get worse. If they are found in this situation, patients would then hold them responsible for damage. However, good nurses cannot be punished for the harm they have not inflicted. While this may sound easy, when it comes to the real practice, it becomes complicated. There are some defenses that can be used by nurses who may fall victims of being blamed for malpractice. Laura was trusted by the patient to give the Vistaril injection, but it turned out that the patient eventually suffered under her care.
Standard Negligence Defenses
Medical malpractice is a type of negligence; hence, many defenses permitted for common negligence claims are also workable against malpractice claims. In this case, Laura can argue that her care was in accordance with the medical principles and standards or that the injuries claimed by the patient were not actually because of a medical mistake. There are several other defenses that may apply while disproving a constituent of negligence as among the most general defenses in case of malpractice. Laura may argue that the sciatic nerve damage may not have been caused by the injection.
Contributory Negligence
At all times, medical nurses are not the ones to accuse of an injury. In case a nurse can demonstrate that if a patient had not been negligent, he/she would not have suffered from the injury, he or she can possess a legitimate defense against a medical malpractice claim. In this case, for instance, Laura may argue that she did her best when the patient was under her care, but in one way or the other the patient may have failed to reveal major factors of his medical history. Then, she can be off the hook for the numbness of the patient’s leg.
Respectable Minority Principle
In some instances, nurses may settle on following a more fundamental way in an effort to effectively ensure better care for the patient. Inasmuch as the decision can put the nurses away from the medical mainstream, they may possess a legitimate defense to a claim of malpractice if he or she follows a chosen treatment. However, the nurse must make the patient aware of risks involved. In this case, Laura may have had a more essential way of giving out the injection to the aggrieved patient and this way may have put the patient at risk, but she has the right to defend her way as to be in line with the medical principle.
Dangers of poor treatment in hospitals do not posture noteworthy ethical issues. The principal clash could be an outside medical attendant who is included in this project. A situation like this could be tended to by having suppliers who work in those settings educate nurses about the instructive system and a need of the informed consent. Informed consent is a standard part of all considerations given by a medical caretaker and is a procedure used to protect individuals from mischief.
Compliance with the State Nurse Practice Act
Some legal and ethical issues like in the case of Laura, which most nurses encounter within their profession, cover more than one field. Wrong medical prescription, for example, covers all of them. Many specialists also believe that high costs at healing centers are doubtlessly a moral issue as well. It is immoral and not reasonable to charge somebody an excessive sum as it is simply like taking advantage of the person’s sickness while failing to provide appropriate medical treatment. The well-being code is an ethical and lawful concern similar to the disregard of some patients by their doctors. Medical negligence is also a tremendous legitimate concern. More than 66% of one survey respondents referred to the protection of patient rights as their most frequent moral issue and recognized poor treatment as the most distressing issue. With minimal staffing, it is hard to ensure following of all moral principles in an expert practice. A pressing need exists for both national and worldwide healthcare settings to employ a highly qualified workforce. Healthcare services foundations ought to consider the scope of moral issues that nurses’ experience in their daily life and their influence on the capacity to do good work for patients.
Tending to ethical issues, nurses like Laura are answerable to the conveyance of value patient care and retention of the qualified staff. Communication is required in terms of moral instruction in diminishing ethical stretch and helping the staff. Furthermore, having practice rules that aid doctors in bringing up ethical issues and engaging them in addressing those concerns are essential for feeling comfortable when talking about moral issues. Proficient affiliations regularly give vital support for educating and dealing with moral issues. Conclusively, hospitals ought to incorporate conduct consistent with the code of ethics into job responsibilities and descriptions, as well as taking this aspect into account during yearly performance audits.
Many qualities are checked when securing independence of a patient and fighting for social equity. As health promoters, medical caretakers have the capacity to impact strategies that can enhance health of the populace. Limitations and bans on poor medical treatment are essential. Understanding that the populace is at danger because of the impact of poor medical treatment is the initial move to evolving conduct. Medical nurses are in an impeccable position to bring forth change. Respective actions should be launched to bring to light issues relating well-being dangers, focusing on teenagers and women under the age of 40. Without mindfulness and training sections, confinements and bans will not have enough effect to drive this populace to sound lifestyle decisions. Laura may have been carrying out her duties diligently and with respect to her fellow human beings, hence being in compliance with the State Nurse Practice Act.
Attributes of the project whereby attendant specialists are utilized for disease screenings could likewise be incorporated into the proper treatment education program. It is compelling and applicable because of the diverse methodology used to prepare specialists. Some additions to an exhaustive educational program on skin disease in general and unfavorable health impacts of indoor tanning in particular are necessary. Paquin states that all medical caretakers in charge of educating different suppliers are obliged to realize this educational module through pedantic or feature presentation. It would likewise improve the campaign if the hospital’s health attendants, community medical attendants, and aestheticians could shadow dermatology and plastic surgery medical attendants to see firsthand the process of identification and treatment of dangerous diseases.
Different patients have distinctive perspectives about what constitutes damage and an advantage. When every such perspective is sensible, it is ethically unsuitable to believe that the ideas of health advantage and mischief are dispassionately autonomous of the persistent judgment. Doctors and nurses have emphasized for a long time that those patients who do without life-managing treatment may be deemed killing themselves and that well-being experts often help with their suicide. These opinions have recently subsided among critics in biomedical morals in light of the fact that there is presently an agreement in law and morals that it is not an ethical infringement to withhold or withdraw restorative treatment. In the event that demise is caused this way because of the doctor’s oversight or activity, there can be no ethical complaint about actions carried out and the doctor’s participation can rightly be seen as tolerant and considerate.
There ought to be limitations on a patient’s and doctor’s privilege of decision when the result has the potential of causing physical damage. Current laws have proved to be ineffective in diminishing poor treatment incidents in hospitals. The laws recommend that a ban is expected to bring forth change and that parental association is important to execute these preventive measures. This method of reasoning is that laws representing the youth’s access to drug misuse are equivalent to securing the well-being and security of patients. A multidimensional promotion project concentrating on mindfulness and knowledge about the dangers of bad drug introduction to patients would have the most effect on its enactment. Reporting necessities have been secured when evoking support for subsidization or different sorts of inclusion of the industry.
Conclusion
As indicated by the nursing Social Policy Statement, social arrangements and the effect they have on the health of individuals, family, and community are a vital section of nursing care and nursing exploration. At last, the healthcare practitioners’ dedication is to the patient, whether that be an individual, family, or a group. As health supporters, experienced practice medical attendants must be prepared to satisfy that part and influence the strategy that upgrades both quality and access to medical services. Sometimes, doctors and nurses follow all the right procedures while treating a patient like in the case of Laura, yet they still find themselves facing complaints of patients. Many practicing nurses usually end up in trouble for not acquiring necessary nursing licenses that might at one time save them a lot of trouble. Therefore, it is always wise to protect oneself from such incidents that might destroy one’s life or career.
Moral difficulties will emerge when working with patients like in the case of Laura who are represented by youthful grownups and teenagers in endeavors to expand the consciousness of well-being. One of the major issues when managing patients would be talking endlessly about their entitlement to choose. A few pundits would face off if to consider that laws on the patient’s access to a change in conduct cannot be legislated. Interestingly, underwriting laws or bans confining access to poor treatment for patients could affect societal changes, thus advancing behavioral changes. If Laura had followed the right procedure and abided by all legal and ethical practices, her case would be simple and well-handled.