Practice/Ethics facts and definitions Flashcards
Medical malpractice - Elements that the patient must prove (4)
Duty
Breach of duty
Causation
Damage
Duty
Physician’s obligation to care for the patient in a manner that is consistent with the quality of care provided by other physicians in treating a patient’s particular condition
Breach of duty
Facts show that the physician failed to meet the standard of care in treating the patient.
Poor outcome, whether permanent or not, or a predictable complication does not necessarily mean that the physician has deviated from the standard of care
Causation
Proof that the violation caused the patient’s injury
Damage
Proof that the physician’s deviation from the standard of care resulted in physical, emotional, or financial injury to the patient
Termination of the physician-patient relationship by the physician without reasonable notice to the patient at a time when the patient requires medical attention and without the opportunity to make arrangements for appropriate continuation and follow-up care.
Abandonment
Typically, a plaintiff’s responsibility to affirmatively prove a fact or facts in dispute on an issue raised between parties in a case
Burden of proof
The causal connection between the act or omission of the defendant and the injury suffered by the plaintiff. The plaintiff must show causation of an injury by the defendant to prove negligence
Causation
Money receivable through judicial order by a plaintiff sustaining harm, impairment, or loss to his or her person or property as the result of the accidental, intentional, or negligent act of another. Damages can be grouped into two primary types: compensatory and punitive
Damages
intentional deception or misrepresentation that an individual knows to be false (or does not believe to be true) and he or she makes, knowing that the deception could result in some unauthorized benefit to himself or herself or some other person
Fraud
failure to exercise the degree of care and skill that a physician or surgeon of the same specialty would use under similar circumstances (professional negligence).
Malpractice
a legal cause of action involving the failure of a defendant physician to exercise that degree of diligence and care that an average qualified physician practicing in the same specialty as that of the defendant physician would have exercised in a similar situation, and which has resulted in the breach of a legal duty owed by the physician to the patient which proximately caused an injury which the law recognizes as deserving of compensation (damages).
Negligence
Res ipsa loquitur
A doctrine that may be invoked in a negligence action when the plaintiff has no direct evidence of negligence, but the injury itself leads to the inference that it would not have occurred in the absence of a negligent act. It raises an inference of the defendant’s negligence, thereby altering the burden of proof so that the defendant must produce evidence that he or she did not commit a negligent act
three elements essential to informed consent
information, comprehension, and voluntariness
A deviation or loss of body structure or of physiologic or psychologic function
Impairment
