Medical errors occur in the day to day interaction among the patients and the clinicians. The doctors' role specifically, stipulate for the doctor to disclose such error to the patient at the point of realizing the same. However, there are ethics and laws that govern the doctor's right and the patients' rights as well. Assume a scenario where the doctor realizes wrong prescription from the clinicians, could this not have an impact if disclosed in front of the patients? In Pensylvania, such ethics are well established in the laws that govern the physicians' options to either disclose or not disclose the patient's health findings. This study is set to exploit the implication of disclosure and non-disclosure in the U.S.
Ethical values and the law are closely related. However, where the ethical obligations surpass the legal framework, the same law can give power for unethical actions (Wu et al, 2013). In the event of a clinician making gross errors in their role in the medical setups. It is not only the doctor's ethical mandate to expose such a mishap to the patients and their families, but also to rectify the situation before it goes out of hand to prevent future occurrences. However, the fear of spoiling the reputation in doctor-patient's relation may dominate the decision process. It is also ethical not to disrupt the patient's recovery process by instilling doubts in the medical staffs. The ethics of harm consideration should be used in making decision whether to disclose or not.
The U.S. report incidences of deaths that results from medical errors that could simply be avoided once detected and rectified. However, the ethical duty to disclose errors in the federal government stipulates for "first doing no harm to the patients". The only challenge is that, it never provided for ethical considerations, once harm has been done to the patients over a long period of time. Their code of medical ethics, over time, remained controversial on the extent of disclosure to the patient. These patients have the right to know their medical status and be free of any medical errors in the treatment process. The state laws on the other hand, may stipulate for compensation upon harm from undisclosed known error. The physician should then explain the whole truth in correcting the harm.
Though the law, advocates for the patients' safety, it does not clearly define the statutes of the physicians if in case reported to have made an error. The doctors’ obligations as stipulated in the law may see the victim of error fired if not demoted. Human is to err, it is unethical to see your colleague packing by disclosure of their faults.
In my opinion, it is of very great service if the error is disclosed. The decision on whether to disclose or not to disclose the medical error should lie on the long-term evaluation of the impact on the health of the individual (Forde & Wu, 2015). The target should be to minimize deaths and harmful impacts of medical negligence.
Finally, the state has applied several strategies to make prescription writing safer. According to Arcangelo and Peterson (2012), these include: the de-identification and anonymous reporting to strategy, exemption from the public disclosure, protection of the confidentiality level that are specific to error reporting. They are also advised to use the standard practice codes such as acute care, standard order tests, medical labels, and also to indulge in interdisciplinary steps in safe implementation and use of medical products (Mazor et al, 2013).
In conclusion, medical errors should be minimized to avert the death cases resulting from negligence. The only way to do this is to disclose and rectify the situation.
References
Mazor, K., Roblin, D. W., Greene, S. M., Fouayzi, H., & Gallagher, T. H. (2015). Primary care physicians’ willingness to disclose oncology errors involving multiple providers to patients. BMJ quality & safety, bmjqs-2015.
Forde, P., & Wu, A. W. (2015). Professional and ethical responsibilities in adverse events and medical errors: discussions when things go wrong. Clinical Oncology and Error Reduction: A Manual for Clinicians, 145.
Wu, A. W., Boyle, D. J., Wallace, G., & Mazor, K. M. (2013). Disclosure of adverse events in the United States and Canada: an update, and a proposed framework for improvement. Journal of public health research, 2(3), 32.
Arcangelo, V. P., & Peterson, A. M. (2012). Pharmacotherapeutics for advanced practice: A practical approach. Philadelphia, PA [u.a.: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
