Medical Negligence: Not about Undesired Outcome, but Based on Reasonable Care

  • Akshaya S. Kumar
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  • Akshaya S. Kumar

    Student at School of Excellence in Law, The Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University, India.

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Abstract

Medical Negligence is a concept that has been in play for quite a long time. It is crucial to note that medical Negligence is not about getting an undesired outcome, but it strongly dwells on the concept of providing reasonable care to the patients when in need. It is more about the conduct of the medical professionals, which includes making time for their patients, explaining different approaches and corresponding risks in a language that their patients could understand, giving sufficient time for the patients to weigh the pros and cons of each approach and then obtain informed consent, providing reasonable care and being empathetic towards the patients and treating their patients in the way in which they would want to be treated if they were the patient and so on. This paper throws light on the ingredients of medical Negligence, the duty of the medical practitioner towards at-risk third parties, the liability associated with medical Negligence, tests laid down to establish a thin line of difference between medical Negligence and an act that could serve as a defence and finally some suggestions to avoid such reckless behaviour on the part of the medical professionals.

Type

Research Paper

Information

International Journal of Law Management and Humanities, Volume 5, Issue 1, Page 1750 - 1765

DOI: https://doij.org/10.10000/IJLMH.112711

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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution -NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits remixing, adapting, and building upon the work for non-commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.

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