Question

HCP114 Medical Law and Ethics

Please read the following and find: What type of complaints do you think the plaintiff is arguing? Does the plaintiff have a strong case or not, why?

The Pennsylvania medical malpractice plaintiff alleged that she experienced the following horrifying incidents while she was a patient in a local Pennsylvania hospital:

The Plaintiff was admitted to the Defendant hospital on July 19, 2007 for a partial gastrectomy. Several days post-surgery, a nurse advised her that a CT scan was required to rule out a pulmonary embolism, and explained that the intravenous access (IV) in her arm was inadequate to administer dye for a CT scan with contrast and therefore a larger gauge I.V. would have to be inserted.

Late July 25, 2007 or early July 26, 2007, the Defendant physician made the following attempts to place the I.V., without success: five or six attempts in the crease of each arm; three or four attempts in her hand (after which the Plaintiff requested the Defendant physician to stop because of the pain); after initially stopping his attempts at placing the I.V., the Defendant physician advised the Plaintiff that she “wouldn’t live to see the sunrise” if the I.V. access was unsuccessful, which caused the Plaintiff to acquiesce in the Defendant physician’s further two or three unsuccessful attempts to place the I.V. in her hand. At that point, the Plaintiff instructed that any further attempts at placing the I.V. be stopped until the hospital laboratory opened early in the morning.

In complete disregard of the Plaintiff’s instruction to stop, the Defendant physician returned to the Plaintiff’s bedside a short time later with two nurses, advising the Plaintiff that he intended to place the I.V. in her neck. The Plaintiff expressly advised the Defendant that she did not consent to the procedure, to which he allegedly stated that he did not need her consent, after which he lowered the head of the bed and directed the nurses to hold the Plaintiff’s arms down as he leaned across her body to insert an I.V. in her neck. The Plaintiff was crying, experiencing pain in her arms, hands, neck, and the surgical site, and pleaded with the Defendant physician to stop as he made two unsuccessful attempts on each side of her neck to insert the I.V.

At 6:00 a.m. that morning, the CT scan was performed without incident using the original I.V. present in the Plaintiff’s arm

The question is what type of complaints do you think the plaintiff is arguing? Does the plaintiff have a strong case or not, why?

Answer 1

The compalints will be related to the autonomy and the consent of medical ethics. As per the Autonomy, the patient has the right to make an informed, uncoerced decision about their own health managemnt.

Yes. the paintiff have a strong case, because of the multiple pricking the patient had to suffer a lot.. at the same time the CT scan is planed to rule out the pulmonary embolism . .it is also the complication of IV canulation