i need a picture of some sort to reference. i also need some more information in order to complete the paper. thesis: should doctors be allowed to get away with causing possible permanent damage to their patients with merely a " slap on the wrist"? i need to argue both for and against.
W W D
It sounds like you've already taken a precipitous leap into a very deep pool. If you want a picture, I'd recommend you take a photo of a package of pre-sliced Swiss cheese. No doctor goes out saying, "I think I'll hurt somebody today," and errors are not a matter of incompetence or uncaring. The vast majority of medical errors occur because of a series of little problems in the system, each of which is in and of itself inconsequential, but when they accumulate in the wrong order lead to disaster. It's even very difficult to find individuals "at fault" for most of the systemic problems. This has become known as the Swiss cheese model. If you stack slices of cheese, the holes will not usually line up perfectly, but every now and then they do, and you can see all the way through a thick stack. Medical errors tend to be the same.
I'm not at all sure what you mean by "both sides," either. There are risks with all medical procedures, and an injury in and of itself is not malpractice. To demand perfect results would be completely unrealistic. It's only when the minimum standards of care have been unmet, and that is the cause of injury, that there's malpractice. This is often ignored in real courts, and the problem with malpractice in the US is that we really don't know what it is. The large majority of instances of malpractice never get to a lawyer, the suits filed are largely not malpractice, and there is no correlation between whether malpractice occured and whether a judgment is found. From the point of view of the general public, whether an injury leads to compensation is almost completely random. From the point of view of the medical profession, whether a mistake was made has almost nothing to do with either whether one gets sued or, if sued, whether one wins or loses the case. The tort system is a good theory, but medicine is too complex to be understood by juries, and in practice it just doesn't work.
Even the majority of the "solutions" to the malpractice problem are really just ways to make a dysfunctional system more tolerable. And you also have to factor in more: your "slap on the wrist" may be tens of millions of dollars, and knowing this, it's difficult to get a specialist out of bed to treat a patient you don't know, who's probably not going to pay his bill. What happens to that patient if the specialist decides it's just not worth the risk of treating him? There are plenty of instances of hospitals being unable to get specialists to "cover call" for this reason. I have seen people threatening to sue before they even got through the door. They will, and they may win a suit even if everything goes perfectly. How do you deal with that?
Julie
medical malpractice is completely out of control. Most doctors won't go into specialties like OB anymore because of this risk. Deliveries aren't always perfect and it's not always the doctor's fault. The US should have malpractice like australia does... where lawyers cannot work on contigency. It's completely out of control in the US. Why do you think you have to almost sign your life away when you have even minor surgery?
tiram
we, as in all dr,nurses,etc.. in the medical field we work hard to save and take care of people, we strongly support the (OBRA). What would happened if everybody stop working in the field because of people wanting to sue. think about it..hmm.......
Orignal From: i have a term paper to do debating both sides of medical malpractice. can anyone help?
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