The blame game: It ’s not alright to blame the patient

Most of the lawsuits I deal with have more than one named defendant. For example, the plaintiff (typically a deceased patient’s next of kin) might sue a hospital, a nursing home, and the attending physician at each facility. Sometimes they go a bit further and may even include the administrator, the director of nursing, and individual HCPs, such as the wound care nurse or the registered dietitian nutritionist. When a lawsuit has multiple defendants, one of the main tasks is determining how much responsibility for the outcome to assign to each party. Responsibility is a nice word for blame, because that is really what we are talking about. Each defendant’s attorney will argue that their client is not to blame, which is obviously their job. What is not so obvious is that this means the attorney must deflect the blame to one of the other parties. It is truly every defendant for himself or herself. The right to refuse treatment While the intricacies and machinations of lawsuit settlement are eye opening to watch, the more important question is what if the patient is (even partly) to blame for his or her own dire situation? Where does patient responsibility fall in all this? Every day patients with diabetes chose not to follow diet recommendations and suffer the resultant elevated A1c levels. They then question why their diabetic foot ulcer is not healing. Patients with sacral pressure injuries refuse to allow staff to turn them to a different position and stay lying flat hour...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Physician Malpractice Source Type: blogs