MALPRACTICE AND NEGLIGENCE IN NURSING
Malpractice, as defined in nursing, refers to the situation in which medical facilities or providers violate their duties of care. A doctor or a nurse knows that he or she should treat the patients but fails, knowing that it will harm the patient. It is not intentional to harm the patient, but it becomes intentional in that the caregiver knows that by such violation, the patient will be harmed (Avraham & Schanzenbach, 2017). Therefore, there must be an element of intent in medical malpractice.
However, not all bad outcomes that occur in medical fields are due to medical malpractices. In some cases, the caregivers can’t save a patient’s life or prevent bad results despite owing their patients a duty of care. An example of medical malpractice is when the doctor decides not to do an expensive diagnostic test because the patient’s insurance company cannot pay to run the test. In this case, the doctor uses the expense of performing the test as an excuse for not attending to the patient.
Medical negligence, on the other hand, occurs when a mistake is made by the medical provider while treating the patient, which will result in harming the patient. Unlike malpractice, the intention is not necessarily involved in negligence. Since the omission is a form of neglect, it is not termed as malpractice since the medical provider never intended to harm the patient through their actions (Nilegaonkar & Kulkarni, 2019). He or she may not know that through committing such acts, the patient will suffer harm. For instance, a nurse may accidentally leave a sponge or another material inside the wound while performing surgery. He or she harms the patient unintentionally, but the actions cannot be termed as medical malpractice.
References
Avraham, R., & Schanzenbach, M. M. (2017). Medical Malpractice. The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics, 2, 120-147.
Nilegaonkar, S., & Kulkarni, P. (2019). Medical negligence. Indian Journal of Medical and Paediatric Oncology, 40(4), 552-552.