Case Study- Good Samaritan Home

Case Study- Good Samaritan Home

Question 1

Despite being categorized under statutory law, there is a distinction between criminal law and civil law. Whereas criminal law is considered inappropriate and wrong against societal norms, civil law is a wrongdoing apparent between individuals. The facts presented in the case constituted both a criminal and a civil case. The case outlined involved society at large as it drew not only the nurses but also the healthcare system in which the nurses operated. Additionally, the nurses’ actions were against the agreeable standards of medical practice and could be prosecuted in front of a jury. The case also required the assertion of the beyond reasonable doubt clause to be prosecuted. This case fits a civil case description because it is between nurses and a specific patient group (elderly patients).

Question 2

Intentional torts define inappropriate acts committed on purpose. These include fraud, assaults, battery, defamation of character, and others. While assaults define an intentional act that causes an imminent threat to another party, battery refers to the intentional application of force to an individual, resulting in physical injury. An example of assault is the utilization of inappropriate verbalization to the patients, resulting in emotional harm to them. Unwanted touching on patients that results in injury is an example of battery. Defamation of character results when their reputation is damaged as a consequence of the perpetuation of false information about them. An example is when caregivers gossip about a patient’s condition but use false information in the process.

Question 3

Falso imprisonment is another intentional tort that occurs when a patient is held against their will. Such is the case when restraints are used on patients for non-medical reasons. Invasion of privacy is a tort that occurs when someone’s privacy is intruded upon without a medical cause. Such is evident when damaging information on a patient is made to the public or unauthorized persons. Fraud is another intentional tort listed in the text. It refers to dishonest actions or practices that result in another person being deprived of their rights. An example of fraud is making false promises to patients regarding their health.

Question 4

In the case presented, the most evident intentional torts include verbal and physical abuse of the elderly patients by the nurse aides. Cheluvappa & Selvendran (2020) define battery as an intentional tort common in various care organizations and results in actual physical harm to the patients. In the case presented, the elderly patients complained of physical abuse. This constitutes battery and is a form of an intentional tort in healthcare. The nurse’s aides’ actions constituted intentional torts because their actions resulted in emotional and physical harm to these patients, evident in the lawsuit against the nurses.

The doctrine of respondeat superior requires employers to be responsible for their employee’s actions. In this regard, organizational management remains answerable for its employees’ actions (Shenoy et al., 2021). In the case presented, and per this doctrine, Good Samaritan Home is responsible for ensuring the nurse aides are supervised.

Question 5

Negligence defines the failure of a professional to act with the level of care that someone with similar prudence would have observed under the same scenarios. The four components of negligence include duty, breach of duty, causation, and damage. While duty refers to the call to manage a patient by a caregiver, breach of duty refers to a demonstration of action not similar to what other professionals would have done under similar circumstances. Causation defies the nexus between an injury in the care process and the professional’s negligence. Damages are actual injuries caused to the patient.

Question 6

A based ethical approach may be ideal for this scenario. It asserts that an individual’s actions are right or wrong in themselves, notwithstanding the consequences of their actions (Ellis, 2020). In this case, the nurse’s actions are wrong regardless of their consequences. This approach can thus be used when handling the case.

 References

Cheluvappa, R., & Selvendran, S. (2020). Medical negligence – key cases and application of legislation. Annals of Medicine and Surgery, 57, 205–211. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amsu.2020.07.017

Ellis, P. (2020). Ethical concepts: Duty-based theories. Journal of Kidney Care, 5(1), 30–32. https://doi.org/10.12968/jokc.2020.5.1.30

Shenoy, A., Shenoy, G. N., & Shenoy, G. G. (2021). Respondeat Superior in Medicine and Public Health Practice: The question is – who is accountable for whom? Ethics, Medicine and Public Health, 17, 100634. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jemep.2021.100634

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Read the case study. Respond to the questions that correspond to the scenario and upload to the appropriate Dropbox.

Each question should be answered in complete sentences, using correct sentence structure. Responses should be free of grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors.

Case Study:

Read the Case in Point: Good Samaritan Home, found in Chapter 7 of your textbook. After reading the case, please respond to the questions below. Be sure to include facts from the textbook as well as other sources to support your conclusions. Provide in-text citations and a reference list.

Define civil and criminal law. Could these case facts give rise to a criminal case, a civil case, or both? Explain your answer.
List and define the intentional torts outlined in the text. Provide an example of each.
What intentional torts do you think the nursing aides may have committed? Please give an explanation of why you chose that tort.
Define respondeat superior. Using that doctrine, explain who is ultimately responsible for the supervision of the nursing aides in this case.
Identify and define the four components of negligence. Do you think this case is an example of negligent acts? Why or why not?
You work as a medical assistant at Good Samaritan Home and overhear the nursing aides talking about their inappropriate actions. Define and choose one of the following ethical approaches and explain how it would help you decide what action to take: virtue- based, consequential, or duty-based?