Doctors’ Malpractice
Introduction
Medical malpractice is defined as any health care provider’s negligence which leads to death or injury of a patient. It is an error to a health to a professional of health care who commits it. The system of medical malpractice too many parties who are interested and they include; doctors, lawyers, hospitals, insurers, patients and lobbyists. Malpractices of medical are solved based on laws of tort. A tort is an omission or an act which is wrongful that leads to injury to another individual. Mechanisms to compensate an individual for losses that he suffers due malpractice of medical are provided by the law of tort. These losses could either be noneconomic or economic. The economic losses include: lost wages and bills while the non economic losses include loss of loved ones and pain. (Spiltanic, 2005).
Discussion
The verdicts of malpractice involve death, brain damage that is severe, emotional distress injuries of paralysis, and visual impairments. Groups of interest perceive malpractice of medical depending on how these claims affect their social political, professional and financial interests. The cost of law suits defense and also awards of damage are causing an increase in medical costs thus leading medical care to be unaffordable. These rising costs are making the doctors to change their specialty and avoid performing medical procedures that are risky. Today, doctors believe that malpractice on medical is a great danger to them than it is to the patients. They think that malpractice as an informed consent omission and also think that the sick do not listen to them and that they blame them when there is no perfection.
Doctors say that what they tell their patients is not taken seriously and the patients don’t know what has been said to them. What causes malpractice is the failure of doctors to explain to the patients in a language that they can understand and thereafter they complain about dumb patients and informed consent. These doctors assume their patients when they try to ask questions. It is clear that more malpractice on medical is done in the office of the doctor than anywhere else and many of the malpractice by private doctors in their offices go unrecognized. (Schroder, 2003).
Many patients do not realize that that a malpractice has occurred and therefore they do not complain about the malpractice in their family doctors or personal doctor office. The malpractices that are done by practitioner are use of medicines that are inappropriate, treatment that is improper and missed diagnosis. These errors are not diagnosed easily and the injury caused may not be identified and most of time patients think that their illness is not responding to treatment. The doctor doesn’t realize that he is wrong and also may not know that he has caused an injury to the patient and believes that the patient’s illness resists treatment and that the sign he sees doesn’t result from the treatment but from the illness. Some malpractices e.g. breast cancer missed diagnosis depends so much on time of the day and even dates. The criteria that make a claim against a doctor successful are: proximate cause, duty, breach and damages.
On the criteria of duty, the doctor must have a responsibility to treat the patient. For example in a case where a doctor is asked to attend to an emergency, there is no contract that is legal that binds him to that patient. If a doctor wants to end the treatment of a patient, he should make arrangements that are reasonable for continuation of the treatment of the patient by another doctor or else this could be considered as duty abandonment. On the criteria of breach, this is whereby the doctor’s treatment is not in accordance with the medical practices that are acceptable for that specialty. On the criteria of proximate cause, this is whereby the doctor’s care is the cause of the injury to the patient. Malpractice is caused by negligence of the doctor and so doctor need to undertake prevention which is cost effective. (Spiltanic, 2005).
Where liability of malpractice is absent, negligent doctors would charge less money for their services and where there is presence of malpractice liability, the doctors who are negligent would close down their businesses because negligence would cause them more damage than benefit. In presence of liability of malpractice, patients have the will to pay fees that are higher in order to substitute purchase of insurance, self insuring or facing a risk that is not insured. Under liability of malpractice, an implicit premium of insurance is paid by patients when they visit doctors who are prone to negligence in comparison of where there is no liability by the doctor. The patient’s right to sue for malpractice would never affect a doctor who is not negligent.
It is very difficult for a patient to identify doctors who are good and those that are negligent. When doctors are liable for their malpractice, the doctors who are negligent incur the cost of their negligence and thus the liability for malpractice serves as a policy of insurance to the patient and also provides the doctor with incentives. Patients do not agree to be treated by doctors who have no insurance on malpractice. An insurance policy on malpractice of medical can be obtained from various carriers. Insurance on malpractice is a relationship that is contractual between the insurer and the doctor whereby the insurance company agrees to indemnify the doctor for losses from claims of malpractice and the insurer is responsible for all malpractice claims that occur during the policy period. (Spiltanic, 2003).
The difference of a doctor who kills just to kill and the doctor who does malpractice is that the doctor can do a malpractice unwillingly while the doctor who kills just to kill does this out of will e.g. performing an abortion. There is also euthanasia which is ending a person’s life in order to relieve suffering and pain. Euthanasia which is active is considered homicide which is criminal but euthanasia which is passive or voluntary is considered as non- criminal. The doctor who does malpractice fails to carryout skills and care that another doctor of the same specialty would exercise under the same situation.
An example of malpractice of medical is whereby the doctor treats a condition that is not in their area of speciality and therefore causes damage. Another situation is whereby the doctor is impaired by the drugs but still continues the treatment of the patient. A doctor performs malpractice by performing procedures that are unnecessary for the purpose of making money. In the case of a doctor doing malpractice, they do not know that they are doing it or that the medicine is wrong while in the case of those who kill to kill they know what they are doing. (Spiltanic, 2003).
References
Schroder J. (2003): Identifying medical malpractice. California: Catalpa press.
Spiltanic, S. (2005): Bringing back eight– Academy Chicago publishers
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