Emergency rooms are very chaotic by nature. Generally, the Doctors present in the emergency rooms diagnose the patients who are needful to seek medical care due to accidents, sudden violent act, illness or any other medical condition. Medical records may not be thoroughly reviewed due to the lack of time that a doctor of the emergency room has to assess the situation before giving treatment. Thus, in the cases of medical negligence doctors present in the emergency room may be given more breathing space than other doctors treating the patient. Treatment in an emergency room means trusting the strangers to save the life of the patient. Emergency room injuries are the sudden physical, emotional, and financial hardships for the patients and their families.
A doctor who examines the patient is the first attending physician performing medical work upon arrival of the patient at the emergency room. In an emergency room, the situation is so terrible that the tests consume a longer period of time; tests such as a CT scan or an MRI cannot be done on the basis of emergency. But emergency in the environment does not eliminate the duty of doctor’s to perform specific tests to isolate the problem.
Errors faced at Emergency Room:
- Failure to get the medical history of the treating patient
- Due to the lack of time, it is difficult to perform an accurate physical examination
- To recognize the life-threatening causes of patient health
- To come on a conclusion about the health of a patient in a hasty manner, without considering alternative treatment or analysing the present medical condition of the patient
- Misdiagnosis, delay in diagnosing or treating the patient
- Delay in performing test which is necessary in case of emergency
- Laboratory errors or the dumping of patient or transfusion of the contaminated blood
- Failure to monitor a patient properly
- Inappropriate medications or improper doses
Injuries Caused by malpractice at Emergency Room:
It would be impossible to list the injuries resulting from malpractice in the emergency room. However, some are more commonly included:
- Severe cardiac attack or death from an undiagnosed heart attack
- Death from undiagnosed stroke or paralysis
- Severe damage to organs or limbs due to misdiagnosis by a doctor
- Infection or ill-treatment
To avoid errors, some measures can be taken into consideration:
- To engage the adequate number of doctors and the supporting staff in the emergency rooms.
- To provide with the adequate facilities
- To maintain the sanitary condition
- To maintain the records of the patient and to look for the tracking procedure of the patient.
- Proper medication administration procedure
- Ethical treatment to the patient
By: Admin
Date: Jul 26th 2019
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