plaintiff

The plaintiff’s best chance of victory would be if the doctor failed to administer a blood transfusion to the patient. One factor that could help this case is the doctor’s disregard for sound medical practices. Before taking any action, the doctor must obtain the patient’s consent (Chand, 2014). In this situation, the doctor gave the patient 15 milligrams of morphine after noticing that he was in severe agony. But on the other hand, when the doctor wanted to administer a blood transfusion, and the patient refused, there seems to be no prior discussion with the patients as to the specifics of it at all before the morphine was administered. The patient was in no mental state to make a sound decision about the blood transfusion. Conversely, the doctor can argue that he or she asked for consent before any action was taken without any notes being jotted down.

Another instance would be establishing a link between the doctor’s negligence and the death of the patient. In such a case, the plaintiff would source the testimony of a certified medical professional to establish that the cause of death was as a result of the actions of the doctor or lack of. Also, the reason of death had no connection or relation whatsoever to the medical condition of the patient as of the time of injury. The cause of death, in this case, would be due to loss of excess blood after the accident. In such a case, the doctor would argue that they followed standard procedure in treating the injuries in the emergency room and cause of death was due to the refusal of the client to get a blood transfusion.

In conclusion, the best shot the plaintiff would have against the defendant would be making sure they have an experienced medical malpractice lawyer, obtain medical records of the patient in secrecy without alerting the hospital of an impending lawsuit and making sure the lawyer has physicians who thoroughly scrutinize the medical records. This is because most cases are won the defendant due to the bias jurors, and judges have towards them.

Reference

Chand, N. K., Subramanya, H. B., & Rao, G. V. (2014). Management of patients who refuse blood transfusion. Indian journal of anaesthesia, 58(5), 658.