Patient care and safety is considered as one of the nation health care challenges. According to American Nurses Association (2001), the nursing code of ethics and legal issues has developed to guide health care professional in applying ethical of conducts in the workplace. Every health care provider has a responsibility to guarantee patient safety and safe care. When patient care is compromised because of negligence legal action can take place. This paper will reflect the case of Benson Joseph “Amputation Mishap” where the wrong leg was amputated during surgery from the neighborhood news season three, episode seven of Pearson Health Science from University of Phoenix student website. This student will differentiate negligence, gross negligence, and malpractice; give opinion of agreement or disagreement with article and rationale, and describe the importance of documentation.
Differentiates Between Negligence, Gross Negligence, and Malpractice
Negligence has been defined as “a general term that denotes conduct lacking in due care (Guido, 2010).” It is a failure associated with a responsibility or obligation to operate with proper care, or failing to behave as the acceptable or sensible individual in specific situations. However, any damages, harm, or loss occur by negligence must be taken into consideration and can be considered as a tort. Tort is unintended or willful inappropriate acts perpetrated by one person to another. Negligence is sometimes a result of behavior which is unintentional or deliberately careless and dangerous by evading duties in its entirety (Guido, 2010). In Mr. Benson case, the staff was clearly negligent. I believed proper measures were not taking before the surgery such as pre-procedure checklist, site marking, and proper documentation that was the reason the wrong leg was amputated. Nevertheless, the healthcare provider fails to act in accordance with the accepted standard of proper care for the client.