Chapter 4 - Medical/Legal and Ethical Issues Flashcards
The set of regulations and ethical considerations that define the scope, or extent and limits, of the EMT’s job is known as what?
Scope of Practice
An EMT providing care for a specific patient in a specific situation, the care that would be expected to be provided by an EMT with similar training when caring for a patient in a similar situation is known as what?
Standard of Care
What is the consent given by adults who are of legal age and mentally competent to make a rational decision in regard to their medical well-being?
Expressed Consent
This is the consent that is presumed a patient or patient’s parent or guardian would give if they could, such as for an unconscious patient or a parent who cannot be contacted when care is needed.
Implied Consent
The term used for someone in place of a parent, indicating a person who may give consent for care of a child when the parents are not present or able to give consent is what?
In Loco Parentis
Being held legally responsible is known as what?
Liability
What constitutes ‘Assault’?
Placing a person in fear of bodily harm.
What constitutes ‘Battery’?
Causing bodily harm to or restraining a person.
A legal document, usually signed by the patient and their physician, which states that the patient has a terminal illness and does not wish to prolong life through resuscitative efforts is what?
Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order
A DNR order; instructions written in advance of an event.
Advance Directive
Physician orders that state not only the patient’s wishes regarding resuscitation attempts but also the patient’s wishes of artificial feeding, antibiotics, and other life-sustaining care if the person is unable to state their desires later.
Physician Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST)
A finding of failure to act properly in a situation in which there was a duty to act, that needed care as would reasonably be expected of the EMT was not provided, and that harm was caused to the patient as a result.
Negligence
A civil, not a criminal, offense; an action or injury caused by negligence from which a lawsuit may arise.
Tort
A Latin term meaning “the thing speaks for itself.”
Res Ipsa Loquitur
An obligation to provide care to a patient.
Duty to Act
Leaving a patient after care has been initiated and before the patient has been transferred to someone with equal or greater medical training.
Abandonment
Regarding personal standards or principles of right and wrong.
Moral
Regarding a social system or social or professional expectations for applying principles of right and wrong.
Ethical
A series of laws, varying in each state, designed to provide limited legal protection for citizens and some health care personnel when they are administering emergency care.
Good Samaritan Laws
The obligation not to reveal information obtained about a patient except to other health care professionals involved in the patient’s care or under subpoena or in a court of law or when the patient has signed a release of confidentiality.
Confidentiality
The act which includes the Privacy Rule protecting the privacy of patient-specific health care information and providing the patient with control over how this information is used and distributed.
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
False injurious information in written form.
Libel
False injurious information stated verbally.
Slander
A person who has completed a legal document that allows for donation of organs and tissues in the event of death.
Organ Donor
A law that permits a person to drop off an infant or child at a police, fire or EMS station or to deliver the infant or child to any available public safety personnel. The intent of the law is to protect children who may otherwise be abandoned or harmed.
Safe Haven Law
The location where a crime has been committed or any place that evidence relating to a crime may be found.
Crime Scene
