When healthcare providers, doctors, or medical institutions fail to up to the standard of care and best practices which is the norm in the medical community, they may be held for medical malpractice.
For medical professionals, the standard of care includes ethical treatment of patients, so it’s not uncommon to see ethical violations come to play as a ground in many medical malpractice lawsuits. While in other instances may be a ground for related negligence claims. By the way, you can get a South Texas medical malpractice lawyer here.
Standard OF Care
Standard of care is the certain professional norms and appropriate medical practices that are expected of every medical professional to follow in their field.
This is unarguably the first tier of a provider’s ethical obligation to his or her patients. The standard of care in a particular field is not subjected to federal guidelines but rather are sets of rules which were established by consensus amongst the healthcare providers themselves and are strictly backed by stringent moral code.
Ethical Issues Under Medical Malpractice
The ethical obligations of healthcare providers are the core of most medical malpractice lawsuits. Medical malpractice is a complex interplay of ethical obligations which involves both the medical provider and the patients as well. While also involving insurance companies in the claims, the whole of medical malpractice is muddled with thought-provoking ethical questions.
Though ethical violations are not considered a proper ground for medical malpractice, and are considered outside the scope of the law but could sum up as an added claim or come under the purview of negligence.
Also to be noted is the fact that some ethical violations may adversely affect a patient’s level of care and as such will be considered medical malpractice.
Instances, where such ethical issues lead to medical malpractice, are as follows;
- Prescribing a medication improperly because a provider is being paid to promote it will likely be considered medical malpractice.
- Failure to obtain informed consent for a medical procedure from the patient, guardian, or next of kin from the beginning may be considered medical malpractice.
- Knowingly making mistakes in the course of care by a medical professional can lead to medical malpractice. The nature of the medical errors is largely a deciding factor in this regard but notwithstanding whether it is human error, harmless error, negligent error, or blatant reckless errors, the frequency of the errors is a cause for medical malpractice.
Non-Disclosure Of Errors As Medical Malpractice
When a medical professional files to disclose medical errors it is considered a serious breach of medical ethics. Though it is largely considered simple negligence the nexus is when it gets to affect the patient’s knowledge or ability to get the necessary aftercare which is then seen as medical malpractice.
Anyone under the foyer of the healthcare providers that liaise or carries out the concealment of medical errors will also be a party in a medical malpractice suit.
Disclosing medical errors readily offset and protect doctors or medical professionals from medical malpractice lawsuits.
Medical Malpractice Vs. Simple Negligence
As said above not all errors are considered medical malpractice. Negligence occurs in a situation whereby someone acts in a way that leads to the harm or injury of another person but without the intent to harm. If a doctor’s ethical violation is not related to the patient’s medical care but resulted in the injury of the person, a negligence lawsuit may be filed against such medical professional.
Generally, there is a statute of limitations safeguarding this and also the court is strict about when negligence can be brought against doctors.
