Negligence of Legal Problems in Healthcare (2016)

Medical negligence refers to the failure of a healthcare practitioner to provide proper care, resulting in harm or injury to the patient. The case study of Dana Carvey illustrates an example of medical negligence where a surgeon performed bypass surgery on the wrong artery, causing harm to the patient. This highlights the importance of establishing legal causation and lawsuits for medical malpractices to reduce the occurrence of such cases.

Running head: Paper 3: Medical- Legal problem
Legal and Ethical Issues in Healthcare
Paper 3: Medical- Legal problem

2
Paper 3: Medical- Legal problem
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
1. Examination of case law.......................................................................................................3
2. Legal and ethical responsibilities..........................................................................................4
3. Negligence of legal problem in healthcare...........................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................6

3
Paper 3: Medical- Legal problem
Introduction
Legal problem in healthcare industry of US has become one of the most serious issues as the
healthcare system of this country is literally losing their patients. This trend of losing patient is
growing rapidly due to errors such as spreading of infection, commitment of accidental medical
practices and error in patient handling. After thorough evaluation, it has been detected that more
than 500 patients are being killed in different healthcare organization of US on per day basis. In
addition to this, employees of these organization as well as practitioners of health care are also
losing patience as well due to which errors in medical practice occur thus resulting in loss of
patients. In addition to this, these legal medical problems and error in health care practices also
affects physical as well as mental standard of patients on a long-term basis (Brothers &
Rothstein, 2015).
Discussion
1. Examination of case law
One such case of medical negligence was observed in case of Dana Carvey. In the year 2001,
Dana Carvey had undergone a bypass operation in one of the most well-known medical institute
of US. However, almost after two months of undergoing the bypass operation Mr. Carvey was
informed that the surgeon who had performed the operation has wrongly bypassed another artery
which was not supposed to be operated. However, the surgeon who had performed the faulty
operation stated that the mistake of medical negligence that was made was solely unintentional
and has occurred as a result of faulty as well as unnatural positioning of Mr. Carvey during the
operation of his artery and heart.
However, in this case Dana Carvey felt that the fault was solely of healthcare organization and
the faulty operation that occurred was a result of negligence of healthcare practitioners. Thus,
Mr. Carvey filed a lawsuit worth $7.5 not only against the surgeon but also against the hospital
authority as well (Usatoday30.usatoday.com, 2018). Carvey was not settled after feeling lawsuit

4
Paper 3: Medical- Legal problem
of $7.5 and although his suit of malpractices against surgeon was settled. He determined that
other should know about this case and can learn from his experience as well.
2. Legal and ethical responsibilities
Cases of medical malpractices have occurred repeatedly in sector of healthcare industry in US.
For instance in the year 2013, there were more than 15 thousand paid claims of medical
malpractices and in the year 2015, paid case of medical malpractice was 8600 in US. However,
in order to reduce this growing rate of legal problem and medical negligence in UK in the year
2005, the US government implemented a regulation named ‘Patient Safety and quality
Improvement Act 2005’ (PSQIA). However, this act was published in the year 2008 and in 2009,
19th January, this law become effective (Hhs.gov, 2018).
The aim of establishing this act was to resolve issues related to healthcare quality and patient
safety and to encourage analysis of such issues as well. This act of PSQIA also provides Federal
privilege as well in order to encourage analysis and reporting of any healthcare malpractices
cases faced by healthcare service users. The work products of patient safety are analyzed and in
order to protect information of patient safety (Fiebelkorn, Seward & Orenstein, 2014). The work
product of patient safety mostly includes of those data which are created or collected in order to
report or analyze the health care malpractices that has been faced by healthcare service users as a
part of events of patient safety (Grillo-López, 2015).
In order to protect health care service users from legal problems or facing consequence of
medical malpractices it is also the responsibility of US government to undertake certain
measures as well. The US government has established United States National Health Care Act
under which not only health insurance of all US residents are covered but also in helps in
improving delivery of healthcare and other health services as well (Hg.org, 2018).
3. Negligence of legal problem in healthcare
The situation when a medical or health care practitioner fails to fulfill their duty in a proper
manner is referred to as medical negligence. Consequence of medical negligence occurs in those
cases when a healthcare practitioner fails to provide proper expected service to use of healthcare

5
Paper 3: Medical- Legal problem
service. In case of the above-mentioned case study of Mr. Carvey, it was found that hospital
authority as well as surgeon who had performed the bypass operation had failed to provide
proper care to the patient and showed negligence in their medical practices by operating wrong
artery of patient (Kshetri, 2014). In the case of Dana Carvey, it was observed that the healthcare
practitioner neglected the duty of medical practitioner and failed to give proper medical service
to the patient. This also showed that by performing bypass surgery in wrong artery there was
occurrence of breach of duty as well. As a result of this breached duty the patient Dana Carvey
faced certain potential harm which caused damage to the patient as well.
Thus, it can be stated that medical negligence can occur when any medical professional fails to
perform in accordance to standard of medical health care service and the service provided by
them deviates from the service that is being accepted as per medical service standard. However,
in all cases medical negligence cannot be termed as medical malpractices (McElrath, Taylor &
Tran, 2016). A medical negligence can be referred to as medical malpractices only when
negligence in treatment of healthcare practitioner results in causing injury to the patient thus
making condition of tat patient more worse and creation of unexpected as well as unreasonable
complication.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that in order to reduce number of occurrence of legal problem like medical
negligence and medical malpractices it is necessary to establish certain legal causation and
lawsuits of medical malpractices. It is observed that occurrence of legal problems like medical
negligence and medical malpractices occurs when a healthcare practitioner fails to provide
proper and standard health care services which may result in further injury or even death to
health care service user. The case of Dana Carvey is a case of medical legal problem where
surgeon of the healthcare organization failed to perform proper bypass surgery of the patient.

6
Paper 3: Medical- Legal problem
Bibliography
Brothers, K. B., & Rothstein, M. A. (2015). Ethical, legal and social implications of
incorporating personalized medicine into healthcare. Personalized Medicine, 12(1), 43-51.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.2217/pme.14.65
Fiebelkorn, A. P., Seward, J. F., & Orenstein, W. A. (2014). A global perspective of vaccination
of healthcare personnel against measles: Systematic review. Vaccine, 32(38), 4823-39.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2013.11.005
Griffith, D. M., Mason, M., Yonas, M., Eng, E., Jeffries, V., Plihcik, S., & Parks, B. (2017).
Dismantling institutional racism: Theory and action. American Journal of Community
Psychology, 39(3-4), 381-92. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10464-007-9117-0
Grillo-López, A.,J. (2015). USA's healthcare reform: Challenges and opportunities.Expert
Review of Anticancer Therapy, 10(3), 295-6. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1586/era.10.2
Hg.org (2018), Health Care Law, Retrieved on 25th June, 2018 from: https://www.hg.org/health-
care-law.html
Hhs.gov (2018), Understanding Patient Safety Confidentiality, Retrieved on 25th June, 2018
from: https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/patient-safety/index.html
Kshetri, N. (2014). The healthcare off-shoring industry in developing economies - institutional
and economic foundations. International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 24(6),
453-70. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09526861111150716
McElrath, K., Taylor, A., & Tran, K. K. (2016). Black-white disparities in criminal justice
referrals to drug treatment: Addressing treatment need or expanding the diagnostic
net? Behavioral Sciences, 6(4), 21-n/a. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs6040021

7
Paper 3: Medical- Legal problem
Nurunnabi, M., & Syed, K. I. (2012). Accountability in the bangladeshi privatized healthcare
sector. International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 25(7), 625-44.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09526861211261226
Usatoday30.usatoday.com (2018), Health, Retrieved on 25th June, 2018 from:
https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/spotlight/2001-11-05-carvey-heart.htm
Wilson, F. A., Stimpson, J. P., & Pagán, J.,A. (2014). Disparities in health outcomes of return
migrants in mexico. International Journal of Population
Research, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/468250
Yao, W., Chu, C., & Li, Z. (2012). The adoption and implementation of RFID technologies in
healthcare: A literature review. Journal of Medical Systems, 36(6), 3507-25.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10916-011-9789-8