As you can see, this draft of my HCP does contain more research, but when I was writing this, I still felt really lost about researching. I also still wasn't quite sure how to use multi-modality or how it would pertain to my topic other than graphs. In this draft, I still didn't cite all my sources yet; I kind of just wrote and paraphrased the author's ideas without citing. 

 

Alicia Lin

Annie Yaniga

Writing 39C

2 Feb. 2016

HCP Draft

            Medical malpractice occurs when a doctor or physician holds the professional skill to complete a medical task but still fails (“malpractice”). Medical malpractice today is not as prevalent as it was in the past. Despite the technology we have today to solve many problems we could not in the past, there is still a significant amount of malpractice as a result of the poor training of medical professionals, ethics, and communication.

Although medical malpractice is not as much of a large issue as it was before, with the technology we have today, there should not be the amount of medical malpractice that still exists. Often, not all cases of malpractice get reported, but even with the cases that were reported, in 2002 in the United Kingdom, there was about 27,000 cases reported over the next nine months (Localio and Hothi). With 27,000 cases reported, that is about 3,000 cases each month. Primarily, these cases are caused by the lack of training and experience the doctors have. There are many causes that attribute to the overall problem of medical malpractice, like diagnosis, surgery, and treatment. The graph below shows that the largest cause of medical malpractice is during the diagnosis stage, which is a result of human error that is caused by the lack of knowledge and training.

This pie chart shows that two main causes of malpractice are diagnosis and surgery, which are two technical skills that need intensive training and accuracy.

This shows that this problem stems from human error, the lack of training from medical professionals, not the technology that causes the problem. While medical malpractice is the caused by the lack of training of medical professionals, the lack of training of medical professionals stem from a wide range of problems like debt, unequal access to health care, and the need for doctors. This in return affects the general public as many people invest a lot of money into quality health care, but the amount of money they invest does not equal the quality and quantity of healthcare then need and deserve.

As individuals get older, they have to invest more in more into healthcare/ health insurance. But because of the poor healthcare they receive due to the lack of training, individuals do not receive equal output that they input.

One of the main reasons why there’s a lack of training for medical professionals is because of the high demand for doctors. Since many people don’t have equal access to health care, many people, generally the wealthy will have access to more and better doctors. While it is more difficult for the poor to have access to a good, experience, reliable doctor. The demand for doctors is generally in more impoverished regions. In the United Kingdom, which is a highly industrialized MDC (More Developed Country), there is about 1.7 doctors for every 1000 patients, where as in other European countries, there’s about 3-5 doctors for every 1000 patients (Hothi). In LDC’s (Less Developed Countries), where conditions are much worse, the demand for doctors is much higher and the ratio of the number of doctors would be much higher compared to those who live in MDC’s. Even within a nation there are different demands for doctors depending on the socio-economic status of each region. It is demand for more doctors in even more developed nations that shows that the trainee’s training is rushed as there is a high demand for doctors. As a result, they become rushed to quickly start treating patients, lessoning the burden on other doctors and lessoning the demand for them, but also increasing the risk of errors being made.

Social pressures like ethics, morals, and peer pressure not only affect the number of malpractice cases but also the many doctors’ training. Morals and ethics affect a doctor’s malpractice, because the doctor is clouded by external goals to achieve a different task, causing them to sacrifice his/her patient’s safety and well being to benefit himself/herself. An example of this would be the case that Henrietta Lacks faced when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Lacks’ attending physician who was suppose to take cells to research to find a cure to her illness, discovered that Lacks’ cancer cells had a special property, in which they would continue to live by feeding them (Skloot). Rather than following through with his obligations to Lacks, he had her sign papers signing away her rights to the cells without informing her about what she was signing off on. This shows how the doctor’s low morale, as he essentially tricked Lacks into signing off the rights to her cells, affects the patient as Lacks is essentially left to die as the doctor abandons her, focusing more on researching the different properties of the cells rather than finding a cure.

            Social pressures like peer pressure from other doctors also affects the number of medical malpractice. Because landing future jobs and promotions depend on the relationship the doctor has with his fellow doctors and boss, even if some doctors know about cases of malpractice, they don’t report other doctors because they do not want to be known as a “whistleblower”, and individual who sells out his own kin (Hothi). By becoming a whistleblower, this affects his future as word of this will spread throughout the whole community of doctors, killing the whistleblower’s reputation, making it near impossible for him to be rehired after being fired.

            Communication is also a large factor that affects medical malpractice. If not caused by the lack of training of medical professionals, many cases occur because of a miscommunication

between patient and doctor. Miscommunication is the cause of malpractice “more than 50 percent of the time of all postoperative complications, 70 percent of all medication errors, and 80 percent of delays in treatment that resulted in death or permanent loss of function” (Gills). This shows that the social barrier between doctor and patient as some patients are too shy or embarrassed to explicate all their symptoms or problems, and the doctor does not further question the patient, causes malpractice as it causes the doctor to possibly misdiagnose the patient. Communication in the healthcare system is “vital” as miscommunication increases error and “threatens patient safety” (Gills).

            While some may not agree that medical malpractice is still an issue, and are complacent with the current healthcare system, it can be shown that because medical malpractice still exists, no matter how much of it exists that our current health care system is flawed. However, there are many solutions that that solve the different flaws of the health care system as long as people compromise.

            A solution that would reduce errors in surgery would be having doctors play videos as part of their training.

A study showed that if the surgeon play video games in the past for about 3 hours per week, it correlated to 37 percent fewer errors and a 27 percent faster completion. Those who currently play video games made 32 percent less errors and 24 percent faster completion (Rosser). This shows that there are definitely skills that individuals pick up and learn while they play video games. It is probable that playing video games while they were young made it easier for them to learn and pick up skills; compared to those who currently play video games but didn’t necessarily play in the past scored a little bit lower because they didn’t have as much time to pick up and further polish the skills that past video gamers were able to do.

            The use of video games to improve surgery also specifically helps laparoscopic surgeons as the controller of a gaming console is very similar structured to the tools used in laparoscopic surgery. Doctor James Clarence Rosser Jr. who keeps many different consoles like the “Xbox, Playstation 2, and Gamecube consoles” close to his operating room where he warms up with one of his favorite games, “Super Monkey Ball” before he goes into surgery (Marriott). Because the two controllers are so similar, using video games to warm up for surgery is a good strategy to prevent errors from happening during surgery. Video games is not just a form of entertainment but also a learning and warm up tool for surgeons to improve skills, accuracy, and above.

            There are also many ways to solve the other problems mentioned before without the use of video games. William H. Frist, the author of the article, “Health Care in the 21^st Century” outlined a list of stops to create the optimal health care system. The first step begins with acceptance, accepting that our health care system is not as successful as it could be. The second is that we much change the direction of our health care system from “consumer-driven” to “patient-centered” (Frist). This means that health care should be focused on providing equal affordable health care to everyone, regardless of race, gender, economic status, and where they live. The number of issue that should be adjusted should be the amount and standard of training. Trainees should have a better quality training to ensure better quality service and experience to help patients. Also, communication is key. The patient should try to be as descriptive as possible to ensure doctors don’t make an error while diagnosing and doctors should question the patient more if they don’t give enough information. There should also be a better system that should be implemented so that people can anonymously report cases of malpractice so that anyone, including other doctors can report the case without being out casted.

            All in all, the current healthcare system that is currently implemented is highly flawed and many improvements need to be made to ensure both doctor and patient safety. Although video games don’t solve all problems, including videos will help decrease the amount of errors in surgery. A new healthcare system should also be implemented to avoid problems like high costs,

miscommunication, moral and ethical disputes, and improve overall safety for patients and doctors.

 

 

Works Cited

Frist, William H., The New England Journal of Medicine, “Health Care in the 21st Century.” 20

Jan. 2005, Web. 20 Jan. 2016.

Gills, Amy E, et al. Postgraduate Medical Journal. Communication Skills Assessment in the

Final postgraduate Years to Established Practice: a Systematic Review.” 2 Dec. 2014,

Web. 20 Jan. 2016.

Hothi, Daljit Kaur. Emerald Insight. “Challenges to Improving Patient Safety in the NHS.” 2003.

Web. 27 Jan. 2016

"malpractice." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011.Web. 23 Jan 2016

Marriott, Michel. New York Times. “We Have to Operate, but Let’s Play First.” 24 Feb. 2005.

Web. 2 Feb. 2016.

Rosser Jr.,  James C., et al, JAMA Surgery. “The Impact of Video Games on Training Surgeons

in the 21st Century. 01 Feb. 2007. Web. 20 Jan. 2016.

Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York City: Broadway Books, 2011.

Print.

 

Links for multi-modals:

https://shashwatidas.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/medical-malpractice-causes-and-statistics.jpg

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/danmunro/files/2014/04/hccostsbyage.png