Medical Malpractice Terms and Definitions

Palliative Care The total care of patients with progressive, incurable illness. In palliative care, the focus of care is on quality of life. Control of pain and other physical symptoms, and psychological, social and spiritual problems is considered most important. Causalgia Pain, usually burning, that is associated with autonomic changes -- change in color of the skin, change in temperature, change in sweating, swelling. Causalgia occurs after a nerve injury. Anesthesia A large class of claims related to anesthesia has resulted from cases where the anesthesiologist or anesthetist did not take a complete medical history of angina, myocardial infarction, recent upper respiratory infection, and asthma. Obstetrics Prenatal care requires collecting, tracking and analyzing a complex series of clinical data collected over several prenatal visits. Informed Consent Is the process by which fully informed patients can participate in choices about Their healthcare. It originates from the legal and ethical right the patient has to direct what happens to her body and from the ethical duty of the physician to involve the patient in her health care. Medications Malpractice This category covers claims arising from inaccurate medication prescriptions, such as wrong medication or dosage level. Confidentiality The principle that prohibits physicians from disclosing confidential comments made to them by patients unless required to do so by law. The law may require physicians to violate patient confidentiality if the patient poses a serious threat to his or her own health and the well-being or that of others. Proximate Cause Proximate cause is defined legally as a cause which, in a natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any intervening event, produces injury, and without which, the injury would not have occurred. Res ipsa loquitur The use of res ipsa loquitur should be prohibited in medical malpractice cases because under this doctrine the mere fact that the injury occurs means that the defendant was negligent, although it is not all the time. Medical Practice Act A statute of a US state or jurisdiction that outlines the scope of practice for physicians and the responsibility of the medical board to regulate that practice. The primary responsibility and obligation of a state medical board is to protect the public through proper licensing and regulation of physicians and, in some jurisdictions, other health care professionals.

Please contact us if anyone you know has suffered from debilitating injuries due to medical malpractice in Cincinnati.

	Did You Know?
	Medical Misdiagnosis is a serious risk every time you go to the hospital. There are many ways that a medical misdiagnosis can present itself. Whether a doctor is at fault, or hospital staff, a misdiagnosis of a serious illness can have very extreme and harmful effects. The National Patient Safety Foundation cites that 42% of medical patients feel they have had experienced a medical error or missed diagnosis.