Türk Tabipleri Birliği Yüksek Onur Kurulu Tıbbi Uygulama Hatası İddiası Dosyalarının Değerlendirilmesi

Abstract

Medical applications are practices potentially affecting individuals’ physical and mental integrity, applied by trained and competent professionals in the context of medical sciences, literature, and common approaches, based on consent of patients so as to protect individuals against illnesses, disabilities, and other undesired health conditions, through making diagnosis, providing treatment, and ensure the improvement of social well-being following healing. Medical malpractice describes all conditions causing changes in the normal course of the disease, delayed healing, injury, and death because of orders and interventions by a healthcare provider such as physicians, nurses and those liberated to perform medical practices by law. Medical malpractice is a comprehensive topic being discussed worldwide with its ethical, legal, medical, educational and administrative aspects. This study aims to demonstrate the system failures in the alleged malpractice and to discuss the perspectives towards health system. In this study, yearly distribution of physicians faced with alleged malpractice, the type of alleged medical malpractice, specialty area of physicians, the hospitals they work, whether the case includes death or not, the initial assessment by first medical chamber, the assessment outcome of High Honorary Board of Turkish Medical Association, the justifications for decisions, the distribution of types of alleged medical malpractice cases ended with penalty were investigated retrospectively. Findings were statistically assessed using “SSPS 21.0 for Windows” package program by Hacettepe University Medical Faculty Department of Biostatistics. According to obtained data, the sole assessment of physicians’ involvement in alleged medical malpractice cases was an improper approach. In the assessment process, when the experts asked whether there is medical malpractice or not: they solely indicate the involvement of physicians in malpractice; however, they do not asses the role of system failure or the percentage of role of physician in the malpractice. Therefore, experts should be educated about system failure and they should be specifically asked to evaluate involvement of system failure in malpractice cases. In evaluation process of medical malpractice cases physicians can actually be held responsible for errors of failure that are not in their responsibility areas at all. In this context, there is a need for novel definitions in the assessment of alleged medical malpractice cases. In accordance with other studies conducted in our country, surgeons, obstetric and gynecologists in particular, are encountered with more medical malpractice claims and faced with higher rates of penalty decisions. This finding should not be explained with high risks in the area only; an additional system analysis should also be considered. In each case that are identified to be free from medical malpractice, investigating every elements of medical intervention process in detail, and revealing whether there is system failure or not, will help to prevent loss of rights for physicians, patients, and patients’ relatives. Keywords: Medical malpractice, system failure, medical expert witness