A Nursing Assistant's Online Journal

In my previous post, I tackled about medical malpractice and medical negligence. In this post, we are going to enumerate the problems often encounter by a patient upon consulting a physician or undergoing surgery, which can be a cause of medical negligence.

When a medical professional failed to do what must be done, it is called medical negligence. It is a poor health care that causes injury, pain, or even death.

Failed or late diagnosis of a serious disease creates fatal consequences, especially if it is a fatal disease like cancer. While the doctor has not yet diagnosed the illness, the pain and suffering of the victim continues. Even if the disease has already been discovered, the treatment may not be successful anymore.  

Untreated fracture is another common case of medical negligence. It involves a doctor failure to diagnose or correctly treat a fracture that causes severe pain to the victim. This problem virtually leads to terrible consequences.

Another distressing case of medical negligence is the wrong amputation or removing the wrong arm or leg, for instance. Perhaps, it will be the worst nightmare if a patient experience this kind of treatment.

Of course we are always expecting the best from the healthcare professionals in white lab coats. So it is hard to imagine that the people whom we believe could heal and save us will also be the one to harm us. However, just like other professions, doctors too make a mistake. But it could no longer be valid if the mistake itself will already end one’s life.              

Here's the part of the write-up that makes me wonder whether the words medical malpractice and medical negligence can be used interchangeably.

WHAT IS MEDICAL MALPRACTICE?
Medical Malpractice, also called medical negligence, is the failure of a medical professional to meet the standard of good medical practice in the field in which the medical professional practices.
Medical malpractice occurs when a healthcare provider - doctor, hospital, HMO, nurse, other individual or entity licensed to provide medical care or treatment - does something that competent doctors would not have done, or fails to do what a competent doctor would have done, resulting in personal injury or wrongful death.

But as far as I can recall my law101, malpractice and negligence are two different law terms with different meanings. The first term is used to refer when a professional did a wrong thing or procedure that results in injury or damage. The latter term is used when a professional knows what must be done but failed to do it. Hence, medical malpractice should never be used as synonym for medical negligence.