Chapter 3: Legal and Ethical Issues Flashcards
Decision making capacity
Ability of the patient to understand the information you are providing and make an informed choice regarding medical care.
Expressed consent
Verbally expressing permission or clearly gesturing
Implied consent
If a patient is unconscious or incapable of making a rational decision, it’s assumed that they would want treatment. Includes mental impairment, intoxication, etc. Is revoked if patient regains the ability to make decisions.
Involuntary consent
Can include minors, the mentally ill, or developmentally delayed. Varies by state.
Consent for minors
- Parents have to give consent, but teachers can act in loco parentis if parents aren’t around.
- If no one is around, you can give care.
- Minors can be considered emancipated if married, in the armed forces, or a parent.
Negligence
- Failure to provide the same care that a person with similar training would provide
- Based on duty, breach of duty, damages, causation
- An example would be dropping a patient.
Abandonment
- Termination of care without a patient’s consent and without making provisions for continuing care
- Must provide medical personnel with a report
Assault
- Unlawfully placing a person in fear of immediate bodily harm (threats).
Battery
Unlawfully touching a person, such as providing care without consent.
Kidnapping
Taking a person by force, such as transporting a person who doesn’t want to be.
Defamation
- Communication of false information that damages the reputation of a person
- Slander if verbal, libel if in writing
Gross negligence
Willful or reckless disregard for standard of care, such as refusing to treat a certain race.
Standard of care
- The way in which you must act or behave toward others, based on people with similar experience.
- Established by customs, state legal standards, organizations, and textbooks
Certification
Process by which an individual or institution is recognized as meeting certain standards.
Licensure
Process by which a competent authority grants permission to practice a profession.
Advance directive
Specifies medical treatment for a competent patient if they are unable to make decisions.
DNR
- Do not resuscitate, but should still provide supportive measures
- DNR must include statement of medical problem, signature of patient, signature of a healthcare provider, and must be dated in the preceding 12 months of an expiration date.
Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment
Describes acceptable medical interventions, must be signed by a healthcare provider.
When do healthcare proxies take effect?
Only if the patient is unable to make decisions.
Scope of practice
Outlines the care you are legally able to provide, defined by state law or medical director.
Presumptive signs of death
- Must be a combination
- Unresponsiveness to painful stimuli, lack of pulse, lack of chest rise/fall, no corneal/deep tendon reflexes, no pupil reactivity, no systolic blood pressure, cyanosis, decreased temperature
- A patient with hypothermia isn’t considered dead until they’re warm.
