Can you properly examine and treat a 400lb patient in your office setting? How about a four-year-old in your ED? A deaf woman in Labor and Delivery? An 82-year-old in the endoscopy clinic? Do patients who present with challenges beyond their immediate health issues increase your risk for a diagnostic or treatment error?Once-accepted practices, e.g., jerry-rigging adult medical equipment for a toddler, guesstimating the weight of a patient who exceeds ...
Jock Hoffman
Do non-compliant patients really sue their doctors?
The non-compliant patient who sues his physician for an adverse clinical outcome is a storied malpractice bogeyman. After failing to follow a screening regimen, show for appointments, undergo recommended tests, make health-related lifestyle changes, or take their medications, these patients (now plaintiffs) have the audacity to blame the doctors and nurses for not being adequately clear or assertive.Are they real?Yes and no. Not every “difficult” patient is a potential ...
Emotionally supporting physicians sued for malpractice
A physician or nurse who receives a Summons and Complaint regarding a medical malpractice suit also receives pointers about whom to talk to, what to say, what not to say, and whom not to talk to. Despite some emphatic precautions, the appropriate advice to those malpractice defendants is not strictly "shut up and lawyer up."To help defendant clinicians cope, the answer ...
Physicians coping after a medical error
A failed treatment, a surgical complication, a medical error, a patient death. When the going gets tough, even the toughest clinicians should get help.Physicians and nurses who feel personally responsible for a medical error or a patient’s injury face an immediate quandary—their next patient. In the midst of your angst and guilt, do you suck it up and soldier ...
