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The last topic we will discuss is medical malpractice. This is not typically considered in a...

The last topic we will discuss is medical malpractice. This is not typically considered in a course dealing with biomedical ethics but because claims of malpractice are common in society in recent times targeting health care practitioners, I think it is worth taking a look at what it is to commit a professional error and why there are so many such claims made against practitioners in the health care field. To be successful in a lawsuit, one needs to show that someone was negligent in doing a particular task or in failing to do what he should have done. There is a proper way to do things -- for example, driving a car, baking a cake, performing surgery -- and improper ways. If one does the task at hand negligently -- improperly -- he has committed "malpractice" with respect to that task. So we need to consider what is the proper way to do the task and is the one who did the task subject to the standard that applies to the performance of the task. Thus an adult who burns the toast because he wasn't paying attention to how long the bread was in the toaster may be guilty of negligently making toast whereas the three-year old who did the same thing might get a pass because the standard of proper toast-making does not apply to the child. Similarly, a cab driver delivering a baby in the back of the cab because his passenger while en route to the hospital went into labor and the cab driver, even though he did his best under the circumstances, committed numerous obstetrical errors delivering the baby would not have committed malpractice whereas the board certified OB/GYN who did exactly what the cab driver did would have -- because the proper standard of care applies to the one but not to the other. In addition to showing that someone was negligent in performing a particular task -- "malpracticing" -- the one instituting a claim of malpractice must show that there were damages or injury which stemmed from the malpractice -- malpractice with no injury won't go any place in terms of a lawsuit -- and similarly even if there is injury stemming from the performance of a task -- say, surgery -- unless the claimant can show that the one performing the task did something wrong, the lawsuit won't be successful -- someone may have died as a result of surgery but that doesn't itself establish that the surgeon departed from the standards that apply to the proper performance of the surgery in question. As to why there are so many errors in the practice of medicine, consider the difference between a simple system as opposed to a complex system -- say, one person baking a cake who does all of the tasks of proper cake baking as opposed to a cake made in a commercial bakery where a number of people are involved in the overall process where each person in the assembly line performs a relatively narrow function which is followed by someone else performing a narrow function but the next person up the line assumes that the person who performed the prior task performed it properly -- and if he didn't, the next person will likely not know that and will pass the now defective product further up the line to completion -- with the defect unnoticed yet present. Apply that to all of the people involved in health care, say, in a hospital setting where a number of people perform their narrow task whereupon the next person performs his/her narrow task but not noticing the error the earlier practitioner made -- say, an orderly misidentified a limb to be amputated, passes the patient on to the next one in line -- say, the anesthesiologist who takes his cue from the identification made by the orderly, applies the anesthetic into the non-surgical limb whereupon the surgeon enters and sees the limb marked -- mistakenly -- to be amputated and -- the rest is history. Again, the more complex the system, the easier it is for errors to creep into the process. Discuss the moral basis for assessing guilt or innocence in terms of negligence

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Expert Solution

Any negligence by an or omission of a medical practitioner in performing his/ her duty is known as medical negligence. Medical negligence happens when the medical practitioner fails to provide the care which is expected in each case thus resulting in injury or death of the patient. It can be any tort or breach of contract of health care of professional services rendered by a health care provider to a patient.The standard of skill and care required of every health care provider in rendering professional services or health care to a patient shall be that degreeof and care ordinarily employed in the same or similar field of medicine sa defendant, and the use of reasonable care and diligence.

Guilt is an emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realizes -accurately or not- that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated universal moral standards and bear significant responsibility for that violation. One of the way to deal with guilt is to try to appease one's conscience by doing good deeds. Thus difficulties with guilt can contribute to the choice of a helping profession as a career. Guilt has some adaptive advantages for health workers:it promotes respect for others, empathy, scrupulousness, and hard work. However. We also see evidence of maladaptive aspects in many health workers. They are prone to exert undue pressure on themselves, be excessively self - critical, and often,to worry

In the common sense, guilt appears to an emotion aroused by the perception of wrong doing which has harmed someone else on the part of the individual experiencing guilt. The negative feelings that accompany guilt often lead time the guilty party desiring to make amends to the injured one so as to compensate the damage done and repair the relationship between the two. Because the emotion appears to be aroused by the perceptions of a moral transgression- that is, someone feels they have done something wrong, or impermissible- it seems like guilt could rightly be considered as a moral emotion;specifically, an emotion related to moral conscience ( a self regulating mechanism) ,rather than moral condemnation ( an other regulating mechanism).


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