An error of judgment constitutes negligence only if a reasonably competent professional with the standard skills that the defendant professes to have, and acting with ordinary care, would not have made the same error . Doctors must exercise an ordinary degree of skill. However, they cannot give a warranty of the perfection of their skill or a guarantee of cure. If the doctor has adopted the right course of treatment, if she/ he is skilled and has worked with a method and manner best suited to the patient, she/ he cannot be blamed for negligence if the patient is not totally cured. Certain conditions must be satisfied before liability can be considered.
It is expected that medical practitioners should abide by these code of medical ethics; it is an obligation on the part of medical practitioner to fulfill certain rights and expectations of the patients. But there is fast spreading professional misconduct amongst the medical practitioners. The unethical practice has gone to a level where the basic purpose of medical profession i.e. service to humanity fails such type of unethical practice has led to deterioration of this profession, which was once considered as a noble profession. Commercialization is the new boom in the society, honest professions are also part of this commercialization be it teaching, medical, law etc.
Ethical obligation and Hippocratic oath of doctor profession was upheld superseding the valid agreement between the parties. (Selina Lum, K .C. Vijayan, 1ST Jan/2013). The appeal raised several fundamental ethical issues, In particular the obligation of doctor to charge fair and reasonable is it an inherent one or should it be published legislation before enforcing? What is professionalism?
YES! People make mistakes,its called being human.Men are given the nature of human,because there is a reason god is called the almighty.Since no man is perfect in this world ,it is evident that a person who is skilled and has knowledge over a particular subject can also commit mistakes during his practice. It is very difficult to define negligence;however,the concept has been accepted in jurisprudence . Negligence by doctors has to be determined by the judges who are not trained in medical science.They rely on experts’ opinion and decide on the basis of basic principles of reasonableness and prudence.This brings into a lot of subjectivity into the decision and the effort is to reduce it and have certain objective criteria .This may sound simple but is tremendeouly difficult as medical profession evolves ans experimentation helps in its evolution.Thus,there is a constant tussle between the established procedure and innovative methods .These issues make it extremely . For a Patient, the doctor is like God.
Throughout the history of medicine, physicians have been required to maintain an extraordinary level of moral sensitivity and duty. As a result, the conduct of those trusted with these responsibilities has been embedded in oaths. These evolving principles stand as a means to strengthen a doctor’s resolve to behave with integrity in their practice. Customs, social beliefs, and politics all just a few things that have the ability to sway a physician’s moral norms. For that reason, medicine requires formalized guidance to offer some resistance to fluctuating social opinion as a reminder to balance the needs of their patients with that of the physician.
The principle of negligence is to determine a guilty party when someone acts in a careless manner and causes injury to another person. Negligence names the careless person legally liable. In order to win, the plaintiff must prove four different elements. The first element that must be proven is Duty of Care. The defendant must have owed the plaintiff legal duty of care.
The Hippocratic Oath acts as a code of ethics that argues that healthcare professionals should value respect, nonmaleficience, and beneficence, but some of these beliefs and ethics contradict other values such as freedom of choice, mandated reporter, and separation of church and state. This oath also includes the Greek Society 's ethical principles and social guidelines. The social guidelines of the Hippocratic Oath followed those in the medical profession. This oath was a guideline between medical professionals and how they were to treat patients within their scope of practice. The oath highlights most aspects that were expected of a medical professional during that time including having respect for all, trying their best in all their work,
The altruistic behaviour of healthcare practitioners may include consistent work or the providence of informal medical advice beyond the boundaries of contracted hours along with the general willingness to move beyond the additional miles in professional activities. There is sufficient evidence that many healthcare practitioners perform their duties beyond their contracted hours but there is a declining trend evident related to the altruism in medicine. This can be expressed within the unwillingness of anaesthetist for accepting a final case on the list due to the time of operation to be run beyond the contracted session limit. The emergence and maintenance of altruism and cooperative social behaviour is found to be a major issue in the biological
This negatively affects the patient and the patient suffers. This leads to the discussion of malpractice. Malpractice or professional negligence is defined as the failure of a person with professional training to act in a reasonable and prudent manner (Marquis & Huston, 2017, p. 114). In malpractice cases, the plaintiff is the injured party and defendant is the professional who is alleged to have cause the injury (Marquis & Huston, 2017, p. 114). There are five elements to malpractice: duty owed, breach of duty, foreseeability of harm, causation, and injury.
The Code of professional conduct and ethics guide the nurses in their day-to-day practice to understand their professional responsibilities in caring for patients in a safe, ethical and effective way (NMBI). Although many types of errors can and do occur in the healthcare setting, according to medical protection Ireland most of the medication errors can be avoided by simple checking procedures and clear, open communication (reference). Several ethical issues may arise as a result of medication errors such as harm to patients, whether to disclose the error, erosion of trust, and impact on quality care (ref). The concept of consent arises from the ethical principle of patient autonomy and basic human rights (ref) Patient 's has all the freedom to