Medical Negligence From the case provided, it is undeniable that there was medical negligence by the physician that led to the patient’s death. This was due to the failed attempt to diagnose the patient’s subdural hematoma in advance. The physician did not competently diagnose the patient’s illness leading to his death that could be preventable. This malpractice claim provides a viable opportunity for suing the physician hence increasing the potentiality of success for the negligence claim (Liebert, 2010). The most common cause of subdural hematoma is car crash accidents and is usually quantified by examining brain image, volume, and width (Liebert, 2010). The possible outcome in this litigation is that the physician may be found guilty and be required to pay the plaintiff or may be found not guilty. Elements of the negligence claim are evident in this case regarding the medical duty of care, breach of duty, causation, and damages.
The medical duty of care: as soon as the patient was put in the emergency department unit for observation, the physician had a duty of care towards him. However, this element is not met in the negligence claim since the physician observed the patient for several hours before placing him on the medical-surgical unit for further observation. In this scenario, the physician could defend himself that he took full responsibility to examine the patient.
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Breach of duty: while judgment errors may not be liable to breach of duty, the physician did not act reasonably in his professional competence while handling the care of the patient. He did not put into consideration that there may be internal injuries rather than physical injuries. This element could be possibly met in the negligence claim. A possible defense assertation by the doctor could be there was no sign of internal damage because the patient’s vital signs were stable and did not show any signs of alarm.
Causation: the cause of patient’s death was as a result of the physician’s breach of duty. The death could have been prevented had the physician correctly diagnosed the Subdural Hematoma earlier (Bryden, 2011). However, it is difficult to establish the cause of harm due to a variety of reasonable explanations for outcomes making it challenging to meet this element in the negligence claim. The possible defense of the doctor, in this case, could be challenging the link between the cause of the act and death of the patient.
The most successful claim against the doctor that meets the negligence claim in this litigation would be the breach of duty element. This is because there is evidence or subjective ignorance and recklessness on handling a risk that was obvious. The failed attempt to identify internal injuries of the patient shows a high level of incompetence of the physician.
References
Bryden, D. (2011). The duty of care and medical negligence. Continuing Education in Anaesthesia Critical Care & Pain , pg.124-127.
Liebert, M. A. (2010). Motor Vehicle Crash-Related Subdural Hematoma from Real-World Head Impact Data. JOURNAL OF NEUROTRAUMA , pg. 2774.
