Why Doctors Commit Malpractice And Does Obama Care Lead Into This?

Medical error is the third leading cause of death in the US, right behind heart disease and cancer. More than 200,000 people die annually as a result of diagnostic mistakes and negligence by healthcare professionals (Washingtonpost, 2016). In the healthcare industry, even the smallest mistakes and oversight could lead to severe consequences for both the patient and professionals. A healthcare professional would be held liable for any discrepancies that causes harm. The following case will analyze the ethical issue and negligence that lead to the death of an elderly woman.

"Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error…" (John Hopkins Medicine). This soaring number has caused medical errors to become the third leading cause of death in the United States. For many people, medicine seems foreign and unknown. People who have lost loved ones due to medical error desperately look for a reason, and many times that blame falls upon doctors. Media has put a negative connotation on doctors as well, causing their reputation to plummet whenever a hospital procedure turns badly. A renown surgeon and author, Atul Gawande, uses his knowledge and experience to give people a new perspective on medicine. In the article "When Doctors Make Mistakes," Gawande uses rhetorical appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos to prove the need for a change in the medical systems and procedures. He analyzes how the public looks at doctors, giving a new perspective to enlighten the reader that even the best doctors can make mistakes.

Medical malpractice claims have risen dramatically over the past 40 years alongside the financial claim awards (Kessler, 2011). Currently, America’s medical tort system is regulated and enforced primarily by the states (“Medical Tort System,” 2016). The main focus of tort law is to preserve the peace between two parties, to determine fault and discourage wrong doing (Pozgar, 2016). Most physicians today carry medical malpractice insurance to protect themselves from the high defense costs of claims and potential financial awards (Kessler, 2011). As the number of medical claims increase and jury awarded punitive damage skyrocket, medical malpractice insurance premiums have also risen dramatically (Kessler, 2011). Malpractice insurance

This research is being submitted on September 16, 2010, for Vicky Philips English class at Rasmussen College by Carl Hooks

The fear of medical malpractice lawsuits is an issue faced by all who practice medicine. To avoid public criticism by colleagues or the public from their profession and sometimes lose their ability to practice, physicians, and doctors feel forced to follow published standards of care. These treatments often include prescribing medications made to treat

Medical malpractice cases are quickly rising all across the United States and the situation is no different in Iowa as well. It has now become important to understand how malpractice occurrences can be identified and the people empowered to rise against such issues and claim their due monetary compensation.

Tort reform has intense arguments to both sides and creates a myriad of concerns. On one side of the tort reform movement, defendants such as corporations and medical professionals want limits on the damages awarded to the plaintiff. The benefit of tort reform for defendant is the financial savings. However, a cap placed on medical malpractice cases and other cases that are of negligence would standardize the monetary compensation regardless of the damage. In my opinion, Medical malpractice tort reform is a gray area, for each breach of the standard of care involves a different story and person, therefore the damages vary and should be evaluated fairly. In this essay, both sides of the argument are discussed, with a focus on medical malpractice tort reform.

A second issue is malpractice. Malpractice issues are always present in an unstable environment where patients will seek to remedy an incident if they feel they have been harmed (Hamric, 2009). It is important to always act in a reasonable way as a health care clinician but unfortunately there are always those who are negligent in their actions as practitioners.

When it comes to health care in the United States, the initial thought many people have are the many growing controversies concerning Obamacare, vaccinations, and making sure all Americans have access to affordable and quality health care. However, what many people fail to realize is a certain aspect in the medical community that, since the early 80’s with the infamous study by Berkman and Frankel, is increasing at such a tremendous rate that the Columbia Medical Review has referred to it as an “epidemic in the medical community.” The statistics regarding the number of individuals who die each year due to medical errors is rising; slowly becoming a major concern in the field. Doctors are busy individuals and at the end of the day still

Health risk the growth of mal practice and the deposition of quality care needs improvement, many patients are not receiving the fair treatment due compensation. Patients liability should be upheld within any health facility The safety for patients and medical liability is important in healthcare because many physicians have obligations required to be fulfilled by law to make sure the quality of care is done in a professional manner.federal law has created an legal system that still faces issues dealing with quality of care.Many health physicians still lack accuracy when it comes to a patients liability. Malpractice has not made the right changes to set forth better effort to the improvement of quality health care.The way courts handle

“The real costs of medical malpractice have little to do with litigation but the lost lives, extra medical expenses, time out of work, and pain and suffering of tens of thousands of people every year” (Baker 1). The effects of malpractice in the health care field are a major issue in today’s society. Working on a more profitable and safe way to ensure the prevention of malpractice is what should be worked on to promote a safe and comfortable environment for the people. There are many errors that malpractice portrays in the healthcare field such handling medical situations: informed consent, foreign objects, and operating on the wrong body part. Also with these mistakes

Mistakes and errors caused by medical providers happen in the healthcare field, resulting in punitive actions against the provider. As cited by Geffken-Eddy (2011) studies by the Institute of Medicine have shown that punishment will only lead to more medical errors or providers not reporting their

One of the great privileges of living in America is the ability to seek the American dream. We have the opportunity, if we work hard enough, to seek any career path of our choice. Those who seek out a career in healthcare should not be faced with the fear of legal action staring at them around every corner. However, there should be consequences in the event of proven neglectful medical care. Therefore, there has to be a middle ground, where both patients can receive care and healthcare professionals can practice in a safe, fearless environment.

“If people understood that doctors weren’t divine, perhaps the odor of malpractice might diminish”(Richard Selzer). “Between 210,000 and 440,000 patients, each year go to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death.”(-Journal of Patient Safety). When medical malpractice happens, many people blame the health care worker involved. Is it entirely fair to shift the blame are the institutions and practices not the ones that deceived them. Three changes needed to be made to cut medical malpractice are reducing the understaffing of nurses, having effective medical practices, and implementing proper communication.

Imagine you are injured or sick and have sought a doctor’s help. Although you trusted your doctor, something, something seemingly very in control of the doctor, went wrong. You are angry and confused, but also think of the commonality of medical malpractice. So, why do doctors, who are supposed to help, harm? Though many flaws influence it, malpractice can be, and often is unintentional. Most doctors aren’t trained to harm their patients. Inexperience and lack of medical discovery led to unintentional suffering of the patient. Personal flaws, like lack of willingness to abandon previous medical methods and shortcomings in communication also harm patients. Further reasons why doctors harm are socio-medical understandings that breed hate, prejudices stemming from a society’s belief about certain people, such as the medical practice under the Nazi regime. Additionally, displayed in the case of Ignác Semmelweis, judgement of one to oneself can be detrimental to any progress one’s ideas could make. We will examine these concepts through Jerome Groopman’s “Flesh-and-Blood Decision Making”, Sherwin Nuland’s The Doctors’ Plague and Barbara Bachrach’s “In the Name of Public Health”. Those who practice medicine are, unfortunately, unfree from the imperfections that plague all of humanity. Through these intimate and varied faults, doctors do harm.