5-2 Final Project Milestone Two: Ethical Components of the Malpractice Case

 Ethical Components of the Malpractice Case
Name
Institution

Ethical Components
Case Summary and Ethical Issues
In this essay, the focus is on a case whose hearing took place at the Intermediate Court of Appeals of Hawaii. Doctor Robert Ricketson was accused of negligence in the way he handled his former patient, Arturo Iturralde. January 24, 2001, Dr. Ricketson carried out tests on Arturo’s spine and concluded that the patient needed spinal fusion surgery. The surgery was set for January 29th, and the materials ordered for the operation arrived at the hospital (HMC) on 27th, but they were not crosschecked to confirm that everything had been included.
On the day of operation, Dr. Ricketson carried on with the surgery but later realized that some Titanium rods were missing from the package. The rods were due to arrive 90 minutes later, but feeling that the delay was risky for the patient, he decided to use a screwdriver shaft as a replacement, a decision which proved to be costly as the patient later passed away due to related injuries. The medical practitioners’ policies strictly state that the availability of all tools and instrumentations must be confirmed before carrying out any operation (Meyers, 2017). Arturo’s family was awarded $5.6 million as compensation following a court decision that found Dr. Ricketson and HMC guilty of negligence.
Ethical Component
Ethical dilemmas are part of a physician’s life. Sometimes there is a thin line between what is wrong and what is right when dealing with patients (Canady, 2016).

Initially, Dr. Ricketson had breached the medical rules and even HMC’s policies by not confirming that all the instrumentations were in place before commencing the surgery. At this stage, he now has to decide between waiting for the Titanium rods to arrive and finding an alternative way of fixing Arturo’s spine. The former would have seen the patient suffer and was risky to the patient’s life. Concerned with Arturo’s suffering, he resorted to the second option. This is believed to have made the patient’s health even worse and caused his death three years later.
Ethical Theory
The theory of consequentialism would have helped resolve this situation. Dr. Ricketson acted in a hurry and did not put the long-term consequences into consideration. His decisions were guided by the fact that Arturo was suffering at that moment and the only way to help him out was to implant parts of a screwdriver in place of the Titanium rods. In his mind, he probably knew that this was a better option but not the right decision. Consequentialists focus on the belief that human beings have to behave in ways that result in the greatest good (Ghobadi et al., 2017). Dr. Ricketson, on the other hand, decided to provide a short-term solution and neglected the future repercussions.
Shared Decision-making Model
Giving the patient an option to make his own decisions in light of the doctor’s explanations would have been a better choice for Dr. Ricketson. A decision-making model where the patient asks all the questions about his or her health and the doctor answers them while giving a possible way forward is very helpful to the patient. This practice gives the patients insight into their health, and whatever consequence might come in case of any of their decisions (Leider, DeBruin, Reynolds, Koch & Seaberg, 2017). The physician ought to put the patient’s decisions ahead of their preference. This will also give the doctor a more detailed opinion on the patient’s life and enhance even better healthcare.
Ethical Guidelines
Feldmeyer, Dr. Ricketson’s colleague, was aware of the whole incident but reported it after the surgery had been redone a few months later. In consideration of human life, this was very late. The whole thing would not have happened if she had alerted the hospital administration about Dr. Ricketson’s poor judgment. According to various malpractice policies, second-opinion physicians are obliged to report any incident that they feel is against the standards of treatment. According to Frakes (2015), encouraging all medical staff to take action in such scenarios will prompt the medical practitioners themselves to be careful because they know that they are being watched.
In the case, it was also found that Dr. Ricketson was not mentally healthy but was still allowed to work for HMC. It is necessary that HMC reviews its employment policies to ensure that any medical practitioner given such responsibility will have the skills to handle patient issues. These guidelines will ensure that all medical practitioners are aware that every action they take falls under their responsibilities (Frakes, 2015). When one has that in mind, he or she will be careful when making any decision that concerns another human being’s life.

References
Canady, M. R. (2016). The verdict is in: surviving a medical malpractice trial. Physician Leadership Journal, 3(3), 14-17.Frakes, M. D. (2015). The Surprising Relevance of Medical Malpractice Law. University Of Chicago Law Review, 82(1), 317-391.
Ghobadi, C. W., Gevorgyan, O., Bednarski, C. E., Hayman, E. L., Walter, J. R., & Shuai, X. (2017). Medical Malpractice Web Advertising: A Qualitative, Cross-sectional Analysis of Plaintiff Medical Malpractice Firms in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. Issues In Law & Medicine, 32(2), 205-212.
Leider, J. P., DeBruin, D., Reynolds, N., Koch, A., & Seaberg, J. (2017). Ethical Guidance for Disaster Response, Specifically Around Crisis Standards of Care: A Systematic Review. American Journal Of Public Health, 107(9), e1-e9.
Meyers, E. E. (2017). Medical Malpractice Case Law Update for 2017. Indiana Lawyer, 28(15), 23-24.