Getting adequate rest is imperative to be a healthy functioning human. And in some professions, one must avoid becoming fatigued to avoid making costly and damaging mistakes. This includes medical professionals such as doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers when exhaustion and fatigue can unintentionally hurt someone or worse.
Per the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, currently, laws limit the hours that residents, doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals can work. Shifts are prohibited from exceeding 26 hours, and weekly hours aren’t to exceed 80 hours.
However, due to the added strain on the healthcare system, they often end up working much longer shifts. As a result, doctors, nurses, and residents will often work so many extra hours trying to take care of patients that they become fatigued and even to the point of complete burnout.
Unfortunately, fatigue and mental and physical exhaustion place their patients in harm’s way. This article will cover the causes of doctor fatigue, why it is dangerous, and how it affects medical malpractice lawsuits.
How Doctor Fatigue Can Cause Medical Errors
Anyone that has ever been sleep-deprived or experienced fatigue understands how it influences and impairs judgment, decision-making, overall mental capacity, attitudes, and more. A Stanford Medicine Study on doctor fatigue shows that physician burnout affects 50% of all United States physicians, and medical errors are responsible for 100,000 to 200,000 deaths each year.
How Fatigue Affects Medical Decision-Making
Medical professionals who are under the influence of fatigue and exhaustion may experience significant adverse effects on their abilities to treat patients, including the following:
- Fatigue reduces overall cognitive function
- Fatigue interferes with memory and recollection
- Fatigue can negatively impact medical professionals’ and doctors’ ability to efficiently grasp or process important information relevant to the patient’s medical condition.
- Fatigue affects emotions, moods, and attitudes and can influence decision-making.
- Fatigue significantly reduces reaction times and responsiveness.
Most patients trust their doctors, nurses, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and other essential healthcare providers. As medical professionals, adequate rest is critical to avoid fatigue, and they are responsible for ensuring sufficient rest and recovery time.
Unfortunately, doctor fatigue is surprisingly common, making it twice as likely that a doctor may make a mistake that could harm one of their patients. If you believe you have injuries caused by a doctor or another medical professional or surgical errors due to fatigue or other issues, you may be entitled to compensation and file a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Ensure you know what to look for in an experienced medical malpractice lawyer who will help you and hire a lawyer you can trust.
Tired Doctors and Medical Malpractice: What You Need to Know
We all sympathize with doctors and other medical professionals who work tirelessly to help their patients. However, no one should suffer due to their doctor or another medical professional who lacks proper rest and suffers from fatigue.
Examples of medical malpractice may include the following circumstances:
- If your surgeon makes an error while operating on you
- Misdiagnoses a condition and prescribes an inaccurate and non-effective treatment that leads to death or permanent impairment.
- A doctor, nurse, or medical professional loses a patient’s lab test results which leads to delayed treatment and the death of a patient.
Whenever a doctor is experiencing fatigue and makes a medical error that another doctor or medical professional in the same situation would not have made, it may be a viable medical malpractice claim. Medical malpractice lawsuits need to follow specific guidelines, which include:
- There must be an established patient-doctor relationship
- A breach of professional duty occurred, and the patient must invoke the concept of standard care
- Proof that the substandard care led to injury or death
- Evidence that the medical professional’s negligence caused damage, injury, or death
Why Hiring an Experienced Medical Malpractice Attorney is Essential
Medical malpractice is connected to intent and is defined as an action that a doctor knows would cause potential harm to a patient, while medical negligence does not rely on intent. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the difference.
If You Are Filing a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit, Attorney Steve Newman Can Help
It is essential to understand that those who work in the medical field are always ready for potential legal action. Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals have experienced legal teams backing them, which makes it essential for you to have expert legal representation if you have a medical malpractice claim.
Attorney Steve Newman is licensed to practice law in both state and federal courts in New York and New Jersey and has represented clients in all 50 states. As an attorney, Steve Newman practices law in personal injury, medical malpractice, construction litigation, and more. In addition, he has an extensive network of board-certified physicians to analyze whether medical malpractice occurred.
Contact the Surgical Error Attorneys at Law Offices of Steve Newman today.
