Miscellaneous

Nurses, Stand Up to Malpractice

By Anne Skove, Esq.

Heparin, forgotten sponge, wrong leg...what can be done about medical mistakes?

There's a person close to the doctor, present during procedures and available during much of the recovery process. Yet, this person may live in the shadow of fear. If only nurses could speak up!

Being in the room (as a patient, no less) while a doctor berates a nurse is awkward, to say the least. But bullying doctors are more than just a pain in a nurse's ass and a poor reflection on their profession. They can also lead to serious mistakes.

Nurses don't speak up when doctors screw up. Whether this is due to gender roles, status, tradition (or probably all of the above), one thing is certain: mistakes could be avoided if health care providers felt that they could confront doctors.

New standards, effective January 1, 2009, will require health care organizations to develop codes of conduct and procedures governing doctors behaving badly. The standards aim to cover "a spectrum of behaviors," according to The Joint Commission's Dr. Mark Chassin, who helped formulate them. Refusing to answer questions or pages, bad attitudes, and certainly more extreme behavior such as physical threats, fall under the umbrella. The Joint Commission is a major accreditor of hospitals.

It is hoped that the standards will give nurses and others license to pipe up before errors occur. Better patient care is the outcome we all hope for. Barring that, the standards could be a useful tool for malpractice attorneys.

The standards give hospitals plenty of leeway, only requiring *that* a code of conduct be formulated, without regard to content. However the Commission suggests that staff learn basic business etiquette, people skills, and zero tolerance for intimidation tactics by doctors. Not having a code could be grounds for loss of accreditation.

See Hostile Hospital Behavior Rapped, Miranda Hitti, WebMD Health News (July 9, 2008), and Bad-Behavior Cure Sought by Watchdog, Bruce Japsen, Chicago Tribune (July 10, 2008).

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on July 10, 2008 (boomark / email).