Question

Failure to communicate led to a $1 million jury judgment against a nurse in Maine. The client had returned to the recovery room from surgery for the removal of a foreign object lodged in his esophagus. At about 1 hour after surgery, the client’s wife reported to the recovery room nurse that her husband was wheezing and in pain. The nurse recognized these symptoms as indicative of an esophageal tear but did not notify the surgeon of the client’s condition for 6 hours. When the surgeon was finally notified of the client’s condition, the client was taken back to surgery and a corrective procedure was performed. Unfortunately, during the 6-hour period before the tear was repaired, the client’s esophagus had become infected with organisms from his gastrointestinal tract, and he died shortly afterward. His wife brought a lawsuit against the hospital for negligence on the part of the nurse. The court ruled that the nurse’s failure to promptly notify the surgeon was a failure to follow a standard of care.

What are the legal facts of the case? How might the nurse have prevented a lawsuit? What is a possible defense the nurse might use?

Answer 1

To recover damages in a malpractice claim, all of the following four elements must be proven by the plaintiff by a preponderance of the evidence.

• Existence of duty- The nurse-patient relationship creates a duty by the nurse to the patient.
• Bresch of duty-The plaintiff may prove a breach of duty by demonstrating that the nursing actions failed to meet the standards of care. The standard of care will be established by a testyfing expert, based on the state nursing practice act. As a nurse you have a duty to assess plan, implement and evaluate care for your patients..
• Proximate cause must be demonstrated in two distibct steps. Plaintiff must prove that, the nurse acts actually actually caused the plaintiff injury and that the type of injury was forseeable, or a logical consequence of the breach of the nursing standard.
• Plaintiff must also prove that there has been an actual injury or damage.

The nurse could have prevented the situation by not being negligent. Negligent is simply vthe failure to use ordinary or reasonable care, as dictated by the standards of practice and by what a reasonable snd prudent nurse would do in the same or similar circumstances. The nursing duty to assess assumes four separate requirements. Failure to conduct any of this will result in breach of duty. One of the most common breaches of the duty to assess is failure to identify and ensure client safety needs. Failure to diagnose means not interpreting a patients signs snd symptoms or not recognizing when a patients condition requires immediate notification of a physician.

After the plaintiff fiiles the complaint outling what the nurse did wrong and how the plaintiff was injured, the defendent files and answer admitting or denying each allegations. If any of the four elementsvof malpractice was missing, the defendent may fileva motion with the court to dismiss the law suit.