Darling V. Auguston Community Memorial Hospital Summary

This case is extremely relevant to what is known as the four D’s of negligence; duty, dereliction, direct cause and damages. Duty is when a doctor and a patient have formed a relationship and said doctor has taken on the responsibility of taking care of the patient. Dereliction or failure to perform a duty, there must be some kind of proof that the doctor somehow neglected the doctor neglected the patient. Direct cause, there must be some kind of proof that what happened to the patient was a direct cause of how the doctor conducted himself or his failure to act which resulted in injury. Damages a patient must prove that harm was incurred by the direct result of the physicians actions.

The plaintiff in Ard v. East Jefferson General Hospital, stated on 20 May, she had rang the nurses station to inform the nursing staff that her husband was experiencing symptoms of nausea, pain, and shortness of breathe. After ringing the call button for several times her spouse received his medication. Mrs. Ard noticed that her husband continued to have difficulty breathing and ringing from side to side, the patient spouse rang the nursing station for approximately an hour and twenty-five minutes until the defendant (Ms. Florscheim) enter the room and initiated a code blue, which Mr. Ard didn’t recover. The expert witness testified that the defendant failed to provide the standard of care concerning the decease and should have read the physician’s progress notes stating patient is high risk upon assessment and observation. The defendant testified she checked on the patient but no documentation was noted. The defendant expert witness disagrees with breech of duty, which upon cross-examination the expert witness agrees with the breech of duty. The district judge, upon judgment, the defendant failed to provide the standard of care (Pozgar, 2012, p. 215-216) and award the plaintiff for damages from $50,000 to $150,000 (Pozgar, 2012, p. 242).

In order to claim that a doctor or hospital was negligent in a medical malpractice case, there must be specific requirements present. First off a doctor-patient relationship must have existed (Boeschen, 2014). An individual making the claim must show that there was a physician-patient relationship with the doctor being sued. This means the doctor was hired and agreed to be hired for the medical care provided. If a doctor began seeing you and treating you, it is easy to prove a physician-patient relationship existed. Second the plaintiff must show the doctor was negligent. Regardless of if the patient is unhappy with their treatment or results, does not determine the doctor is liable for medical malpractice. The doctor must have been negligent -- not reasonably skillful and careful -- in a diagnosis or treatment (Boeschen, 2014). To sue for malpractice, you must be able to show that the doctor caused you harm in a way that a competent doctor, under the same circumstances would not have (Boeschen, 2014). In many cases, the doctor's care is not required to be the best possible, but simply "reasonably skillful and careful” (Boeschen, 2014). Whether or not the doctor was reasonably skillful and careful is often up to the medical malpractice claim.

M was taking a look at his leg that was injured but seemed to be healing. All was thought to be well until one office visit the doctor went across the hall to check on another patient who seemed to have an infected leg. The doctor left the door open where confidentiality here was obviously not being taking into consideration for the patient he was seeing as well as others who were able to hear them. Since the door was open, his parents noticed that he did not change his gloves while entering that other room and came back to check on their son with no gloves on. Dr. M was concerned about Jacobs leg and told him to come back the following week while treating it with antibiotics. The following week he comes back only to see that he has developed osteomyelitis. This was the same infection that the other patient developed while under the care of his supervision. Jacobs delay in his recover cost him the opportunity to play football and a college scholarship. Jacobs’s parents then resorted to suing Dr. M because of his negligence and lack of medical

I believe that the hospital should take the blame for the damages and suffering that Kelly Niles endured. This decision reflects the quality of care that Niles received while he was at the hospital and also correlates to his physical status. The neurosurgeons stated that his status would have been better if they got to him sooner and were able to treat him in time, but due to the negligence throughout his whole treatment he is left with the ability to only move his eyes and neck. The fact that there was doubt that Kelly would survive the next few days after his surgery supports my decision that what the court ruled was reasonable and appropriate. Kelly “remained in a coma for 46 days before gradually regaining consciousness.” Kelly is totally disabled and his condition can’t ever be improved with medical attention or surgical treatments which furthers my final decision (“Niles v. City of San Rafael,”

The case was based on plaintiff claims that they were engaged in protected activity of investigating potential false claims submitted by the hospital to the government. According to the suit filed, a doctor on site was involved in a kickback agreement with the hospital anesthesiologist, Dr. Brad Barth, the husband of one of the plaintiffs in the case.

The defendants, The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital and Wesley Long Community Hospital, are North Carolina corporations, and each has established, owns, and maintains a general hospital in the City of Greensboro, North Carolina.

With regard to Ms. Green’s claims against O’Brien, it is apparent that Ms. Green was O’Brien’s client, and that O’Brien owed Ms. Green a duty. Should this case proceed to trial we do not anticipate that we would argue to a jury that O’Brien did not neglect this duty. Rather, there are serious questions as to whether “the negligence resulted in and was the proximate cause of loss to the client.” Kendall v. Rogers, 181 Md. 606, 611-12 (1943). Indeed, the estate will have to demonstrate that Ms. Green would have prevailed in proving that one or both health care provider defendants committed medical negligence that caused her to fall into the diabetic coma.

According to Chief Justice Phillips’s opinion, the plaintiff, Sampson, needed to raise “a genuine issue of material fact that defendant Hospital was vicariously liable under the theory of ostensible agency for an emergency room physician’s negligence.” For that reason, we grant the BMHS’s request for writ of error due to the failure that the plaintiff was unable to establish vicarious liability based on the facts that the hospital had taken the reasonable and necessary steps to show its patients that the practicing physicians at the hospital were not employees or agents of the hospital (Phillips, 1997).

malpractice and negligence. The Darling's (Plaintiff) felt that the hospital, nursing staff and emergency room doctor all played an important part in the Plaintiff losing his leg due to neglect.

Negligence happens when a “person’s actions fall below a certain level of care. Negligence can involve doing something carelessly or failing to do something that should have been done.” (Fremgen, 2009, p. 35). In order to prove negligence the plaintiff must present the following elements: 1) duty to care, 2) breach of duty to care, 3) injury and 4) causation (Pozgar, 2012, p. 33). Duty to care is the first element which deals with the care that the defendant (physician) owes the plaintiff (the patient).

The hospital is responsible for the death of 8 month old Kaia and 15-year old. Both of the patient's death were caused by medical malpractice. Medical Malpractice is the 3rd leading cause of death in America , according to the journal study of the patient . Its sad to see that a lot of people die due to medical malpractice all over the world. It is clear that the Seattle Childen's Hospital did nothing to change, because in just 18 months another death occurred due so overdose of medication. This hospital did not take the time to take the safety precausions needed to avoid both deaths in the first place. It's scary to think that if the nurse had taken the extra minute to check her miscalcuation the baby would still be alive.

According to Westrick, 2014, the plaintiff’s claim may be proven based on four elements: (1) the defendant has a duty to the plaintiff, (2) the defendant failed to perform her duty or failed to act reasonably, (3) the breach of duty caused damages or injury to the plaintiff, and (4) the presence of proximate causation between the breach of duty and the resultant injury. Failure to prove any of the four elements will cause the failure of the plaintiff’s claim and a valid defense for the defendant. In Case Study I: Malpractice Action Brought by Yolanda Pinnelas, Ms. Pinnelas is the patient and the plaintiff. Her claim based on the four elements will come out as: (1) Ms. Pinnelas was admitted in the hospital. The Caring Hospital and its staff has the duty to safely provide care to her. The Caring Hospital has the corporate liability for her care. (2) Breach of duty that may have caused her injury were identified. The chemotherapy medication was delivered late. The response time for staff to answer the bells and alarms were long. Risk Management, Equipment safety procedures. No report about the malfunctioning of the pump was documented nor was it separated and labeled as malfunctioning equipment. Gaps in nursing documentation of nursing assessment, interventions and re-evaluation of the patient after the IV chemotherapy was discontinued. Ms. Pinnelas had also undergone surgical procedures after the hand was found necrotic, the surgical procedures caused scarring to the tissues

One would be force lability, which means that the physician new that using those pliers would have brought on some sort of infection. However, the pliers were not sterilized and were not part of the operating room instruments; the doctor should have known better and should have anticipated the infection. The physician had only to use the proper tools and no problems would have been present. The physician should have guarded against what was going to happen not what was remotely to happen.

In order to make plaintiff prevail in case of the claim of medical malpractice it would be needed that plaintiff or patient must essentially prove that following four distinct elements, such as duty, duty or care, proximate cause and damages (Lau & Johnson, 2014). In absence of any of these essential elements the possibility of plaintiff to prevail does not exist. Also it is the liability of the patient or plaintiff to prove these cases. Plaintiff must prove the following elements to prevail in a claim of medical malpractice