Medical Negligence

The legal concept of negligence involves three steps:

1.)The first step involves that which regulates human behavior towards others. This describes what duty is owed to others.

2.)The second step necessarily involved in the issue of negligence is failure or breach of the duty owed to the individual. Once duty to the individual is established, the actor has the obligation to perform that duty in a manner that will bring to it a successful conclusion.

3.)The final step involves damage to the individual for breach of duty. For the legal concept of negligence to apply, there must be some damage to the person or property, resulting from breach of the duty owed.

There is also the notion of nominal damages, which indicates to find someone at fault and that there is a consequence for acting in negligent manner.

Directions:

A. Read the attached two articles; there are three different instances of possible negligence that has occurred. Using the three steps above, address each step in order to make the legal concept of negligence valid in these three cases.
B. Explain, reviewing each case, and, according to the concept of medical negligence, the:
i. Element of duty owed
ii. The Element of breach
iii. The element of injury-what type of injury occurred
iv. The burden of proof-who does this rest on in each case

Make sure each article is being reviewed and used all the concept of negligence. Please make to address each point. Try to review each article on two different documents.

The first article is in this website —- http://netprofitspro.com/a1.doc
The first half of second article is in this website —- http://netprofitspro.com/a2.doc
The second half of second article is in this website-http://netprofitspro.com/a3.JPG © BrainMass Inc. brainmass.com March 21, 2019, 11:19 am ad1c9bdddf
https://brainmass.com/health-sciences/health-care-ethics/medical-negligence-40108

Solution Preview

Hi there –
I will walk you the steps you outlined for each incidence of negligence. Based on these two articles, the three instances of negligence I spotted were: 1) the surgeon’s negligence 2) the hospital’s negligence in failing to report the surgeon’s incompetence and 2) the physician’s negligence in making a calculation error resulting in the death of the cancer patient. I hope this analysis is helpful to you! 🙂
The first article deals with the undisciplined doctor whose patient developed a staph infection and other complications. Let’s break this problem down:
1) Duty owed: The doctor AND the hospital owed the patient a duty of reasonable care while on the operating table and in the hospital. The patient had a right to expect appropriate pre and post-surgical care as well as reasonable care during the operation itself.
2) Failure/breach of this duty: The patient suffered serious post-surgical complications due to the severe staph infection. Normally, a patient recovering from surgery does not suffer from such an infection. Therefore, negligence can be inferred.
3) Injury: Certainly, this patient suffered injury directly resulting from the breach. He has suffered (most likely) …