Examples of medical negligence: Failure to take medical history

Question 0

What are the facts of Chin Kiow v Gov of Malaysia?

Answer 0

Woman had ulcer on her right ankle and had swollen glands in her thigh.
Doctor in charge gave her a shot of penicillin, she died within the hour.

Doctor did not take medical history, if he had he would have discovered the person is allergic to penicillin.

Held: Doctor breached DOC

Question 1

What are the main cases for this example?

Answer 1

1. Chin Kiow v Gov of Malaysia
2. Giurelli v Girgis
3. Locher v Turner

Question 2

What are the facts of Giurelli v Girgis

Answer 2

Man had bad break in his leg. He had a plate put in.
Patient referred to physiotherapist and made more complaints about pain in his leg. He was a serial complainer, so physiotherapist dismissed his complaints.
He stood up and leg broke in three further places, pain was an indication that the leg wasn’t healing.

Held: Doctor breached obligation.
He also had limited amount of time that the doctor was seeing each patient and failure to listen to patient’s clear complaints of pain.

Question 3

What is Giurelli v Girgis authority for?

Answer 3

Doctors have an ongoing obligation to take medical history of the patient.

Question 4

What are the fats of Locher v Turner?

Answer 4

P complained of rectal bleeding.

Held: If GP had ordered tests, would have earlier identified P’s cancer and would have led to more successful treatment.