Negligence and Medical Malpractice Assignment
INSTRUCTIONS:
A thread of at least 1,000 words in response to the provided case study threads. Each thread and reply must reference at least 3 scholarly sources and follow current APAformat (including both in-text citations and a reference list). You must also support each thread and reply with thoughtful analysis (considering assumptions, analyzing implications, and comparing/contrasting concepts and include thorough biblical worldview integration.
View the assigned Healthcare Law LearnScape interactive episode in the Jones &Bartlett website (DB2 LearnScape Case Study). You will be presented with a negligence case stemming from an incident in the hospital. You must interview staff members and work with the General Counsel to determine the hospital’s liability for negligence and medical malpractice.
Prompt: Based on the information you gathered from the LearnScape video interviews, on your research, and on a biblical worldview, analyze this incident and write your recommendation to the Chief Counsel regarding negligence/malpractice liability. Directly address the 4 elements required to prove negligence:
1. Duty to care
2. Breach of duty
3. Injury
4. Causation (specifically foreseeability)
Assessors need to be aware of their responsibilities and carry them out appropriately. To do this they need to:
Ensure that participants are assessed fairly based on the outcome of the language, literacy and numeracy review completed at enrollment.
Ensure that all documentation is signed by the student, trainer, workplace supervisor and assessor when units and certificates are complete, to ensure that there is no follow-up required from an administration perspective. Ensure that their own qualifications are current.
When required, request the manager or supervisor to determine that the student is ‘satisfactorily’ demonstrating the requirements for each unit. ‘Satisfactorily’ means consistently meeting the standard expected from an experienced operator. Health or Community Services Assessment.
When required, ensure supervisors and students sign off on third party assessment forms or third party reports.
Follow the recommendations from moderation and validation meetings. How should I format my assessments?
Your assessments should be typed in a 11 or 12 size font for ease of reading. You must include a footer on each page with the student name, unit code and date. Your assessment needs to be submitted as a hardcopy or electronic copy as requested by your trainer.
How long should my answers be? Negligence and Medical Malpractice Assignment
SAMPLE DESCRIPTION:
Negligence Assignment
Negligence and medical malpractice are often used in place of each other in the legal aspect of healthcare. The truth is, they are not synonymous. Medical malpractice refers to misconduct that involves a physician that fails to follow a standard of care. While negligence refers to “someone failing to do something that a reasonably prudent person would do in a similar situation, or alternatively, doing something that a reasonably a prudent person would not do in a similar situation.”
In order to file a negligence claim in medical malpractice, the plaintiff has to prove the
four elements of negligence. The four elements of negligence are duty of care, a breach of duty of care, causation, and damages. All four elements must be proven, or the the plaintiff will lose the case.
The first element of negligence is duty of care. This is an obligation, to follow a specific standard of conduct toward another person. Simply put, duty of care is the risk that if a person does not behave in a certain way, they will be held liable for the harm that is brought upon another because of their actions. An example of this is an accountant’s responsibility to correctly file taxes or they will be audited by the IRS.
The second element is the breach of duty of care, meaning, the standard of care was not maintained by the medical professional in question. The plaintiff must prove there has been a breach of standard of care by the defendant. In order to do this, they have to outline the standard of care that should have been followed.
This can be done with evidence of standards such as laws and hospital acts, written materials from professionals or accrediting bodies such as textbooks or medical staff bylaws and manuals, and lastly, they can ask a professional who is fluent in the same area of practice to testify what the standard of care is and how he would have cared for the plaintiff.
The third element of negligence is causation. This is arguably the most difficult element to prove. Causation is proving there was an injury caused from the breached standard of care. It can be difficult to prove that an injury is directly related to the breach and there is no indirect intervention from an outside source. To determine the cause of the injury,
foreseeability is used. If the defendant had known the intervening source could occur, the injury is considered foreseeable and the defendant is held liable.
After the plaintiff is able to determine a link between the breach of standard of care and the injury, the patient is then entitled to damages. There are three types of damages: nominal, actual, and punitive. Nominal damages are very small amounts of money that are given to show recognition of invasion of someone’s rights.
Actual damages are given to restore the plaintiff to how he or she was before the injury.Punitive damages are given to go above and beyond actual damages. They are only given when there is proof of “outrageous, malicious, or intentional conduct.” Punitive damages are rare in medical malpractice cases because they involve intentional misconduct, whereas negligence theory involves deviating from standard of care.
