Public duty and grief - Research Paper Example

Public Duty and Grief Public Duties and Responsibilities of Healthcare Professionals The job of any healthcare professionals involved a lot of specification as well as important responsibilities that directly relates to the well being of people they serve. It has been observed in many of the cases that the approach taken by any physician directly becomes the responsibility of the respondeat superior while in many cases it does not fall under the liability of respondeat superior. Furthermore, a physician must have a duty to take care of the patients irrespective of his/ her personal issues or in-spite of having no particular relationship with the remedied patient.

In certain circumstances, doctors often voluntarily helps or assists nurses or other healthcare staff that may result in the occurrence of certain inappropriate consultation or treatment. In such instances, the action of doctors does not make hospital authorities liable instead doctors themselves are answerable for such losses or negligence. Except the above stated scenario, the hospital authority or the employer has the responsibility to answer for any possible mal-practice of its staff, nurses or the doctors.

Furthermore, it has been ascertained that in many cases a doctor or nurse who are linked with any kind of medical mal-practice, are retained by hospitals despite their negligence in the past. In this context, any further mal-practice of these nurse and doctors will leave the hospital authority (employer) responsible or answerable for that particular misconduct under a particular law theory called “respondeat superior" which means that ‘let the master answer’. Hence, it is the prime responsibility of the hospital authorities to keep watch on the action of doctors or any other healthcare staff in order to ensure well being of the common public as well as omit any possibility of professional negligence (FindLaw, 2013; Judson & Harrison, 2010).

Personal Experience on Grieving Process I have bitter experience regarding grievance in my life. I have lost one of my closest friends just because of the negligence of hospital authority. It was quite a difficult for me to pull myself out of that particular scenario. Initially, when I heard this lethal news that my friend was no more, my heart was denying the fact that I actually loss him. I could not believe that a small accident would cost me to loss him forever. However, when I came to know that his death was not due to the accident causalities, I suddenly become quite shocked.

Later on I found that his death was owing to the negligence of the hospital authority. Indeed, it made me furious and I tried to consolidate myself but the loss was severe and intolerable for me. I begged god to provide me strength to deal with this painful reality. The entire matter put me into deep depression which affected my normal life for a long time. However, after a considerable period of time I began to realise that I need to get back to my normal life irrespective of the loss I have witnessed.

It was quite a hard task for me to accept this bitter truth but with the passage of time I began to accept the reality. Nevertheless, when I recall those instances, I still feel furious towards the negligence of hospital authority. I wholeheartedly wish that such incidents would never happen to any body’s life and such act of negligence by the hospital authority should be duly brought under the legal prosecution and the people or the health care professionals involved should be punished for their negligence.

ReferencesFindLaw. (2013). What is a doctors duty of care? Retrieved from http://injury.findlaw.com/medical-malpractice/what-is-actionable-medical-malpractice.html Judson, K., & Harrison, C. (2010). Law and ethics for medical careers, 5/e. New York: Mcgraw-hill.