Medical Practitioners Case Study 2022

Introduction
Medical practitioners play a critical role in the delivery of quality care to patients in
healthcare facilities. In the process of delivering quality care to the patients effectively, nurses
are guided by medical standards of practice and codes of ethics which helps the nurses to make
the right decisions in every situation they are faced (Peter , 2018). Medical standards of
practice and codes of ethics are necessary for the process of delivering quality care because the
needs of patients are not only different but also unique and more often nurses are faced with
dilemmas when trying to meet those needs (Stolt et al., 2018). With the help of codes of ethics
and medical standard of practice, nurses are able to solve these ethical dilemmas by making
sound decisions that are legal, patient-centered, and morally right. However, some medical
practitioners are not conversant with codes of ethics and medical standard of practice which
result in legal and ethical concerns in the process of delivering care to the patients. For example,
in the case study provided, one of the nurses gives out private information of the patient without
the patient’s consent. The action of the nurse raises legal concerns regarding the patient-doctor
relationship. Also, one of the nurses administers treatment to the patient when the patient had
refused treatment in the first place which raises ethical issues regarding the patient’s right to self-
determination.
Body
A discussion on the legal issues on the cased study
One of the main legal concerns that comes out clearly in this essay is the breach of
patient-doctor confidentiality. By definition, doctor-patient confidentiality is founded on the
principle that requires people not to be worried about seeking medication for fear that their

condition will be disclosed to other people (Bjorklund & Lund, 2019). The goal of the doctor-
patient relationship is to create a comfortable environment for patients to provide relevant
information that will assist in quality care delivery by the nurses (Cunningham & Ainsworth,
2018). All medical practitioners are supposed to adhere to this relationship in the process of
caring for patients. However, in the case study provided, the nurses caring for Mr. Jones
breached the patient-doctor relationship in various instances. One of these instances was when
the reporter from the local newspaper by the name of Peter Scott called the ward to inquire about
the progress of Mr. Jones's injury status. The registered nurse by the name Rachel who received
the phone disclosed to the reporter that Mr. Jones will not be able to play again without the
consent of Mr. Jones. As a result, the reporter reported this information to the general public in
the sports section of the local newspaper. The actions of the nurse in this situation constitute a
breach of the patient-doctor relationship. This is so because a breach of the doctor-patient
relationship is said to have occurred when the private information of the patient is disclosed to
the third party without that patient’s consent with exceptions to this including court orders and
state medical officers (Cherry & Jacob, 2018). the private information based on the patient-
doctor confidentiality covers all the medical records of the patients as well as the opinions that a
doctor forms after examining the patients. Based on the case study, the nurse caring for Mr.
Jones disclosed her opinion about the status of the patient’s injury to the reporter after the
examination. This, therefore, constituted a breach of patient-doctor relationship making a nurse
liable for legal action. This is so because patient confidentiality is protected under the state law
which stipulates that if the disclosure of the patient private information without his consent
causes harm of any kind to that patient, the patient can have a cause of action against a medical
practitioner for the invasion of privacy (Char, Shah, & Magnus, 2018). The action of the

nurse disclosing the private information of the patient without his consent resulted in more harm
to the patient based on the case study. This is so because immediately the patient realized that his
private information has been disclosed, he became furious and the nurse noticed that he looked
pale and sweaty. This shows that the condition of Mr. Jones worsened after his private
information was disclosed to the third party by the nurse without his consent. Therefore, the
patient is at liberty to take a cause of action against the nurse for inverting his privacy as
provided by the state law.
Another legal action that comes out clearly in this case study is medical malpractice. All
medical practitioners have a duty to care for their patients by providing them quality care that is
based on the medical standard of care (Gannon, 2018). Therefore, medical negligence is said
to have occurred when a medical practitioner offers medical care to patients in a way that is not
based on their medical standard of care (Delaney, 2018). According to (Wu et al., 2019)
there are two aspects that the actions of any medical practitioner must meet for them to constitute
medical negligence. First, the actions of the nurse must have deviated from the applicable
medical standards and secondly, the actions of the nurse must have resulted to harm to the
patients (Ewuoso, 2019). Based on the case study, there are various instances that nurses that
care for Mr. Jones committed medical negligence. For example, after Mr. Jones had come out of
surgery, his condition deteriorated. However, when Mr. Jones raised a concern that he feels
something was left on his leg during surgery, the nurses caring for him ignored his concern. One
nurse specifically omitted the concerns that Mr. Jones had raised when documenting medical
information about Mr. Jones even though she came back one week later to correct it. The actions
of the nurse in this situation constitute medical negligence because first, the action of the nurse
omitting the concerns raised by the patients was against the medical standards of nurse practice.