Sociaology Compare and Contrast Paper

        What would you do if there was a patient having surgery and you went in and the wrong leg was removed and you were prepped for the correct leg and the surgeon removed the leg that was not initialed and or signed by the surgeon. When one is a patient at a hospital going in for surgery for an amputation one expects the correct limb to be amputated. In this case, this is not what occurred in the operating room. Mr. Price went in for the amputation of one leg, but had the wrong leg amputated.

        I believe that the hospital was at fault as well as the nurse and the surgeons in this case. I feel if the hospital had a strict policy this may have never happened when doing the surgery on this patient. I do understand that things do happen in the hospital but this should not have happened to Mr. Price. I also believe that the doctors relied on the surgical team more than what should have been expected and even Nurse Bobbi had stated that as well. Remember that surgeons and nurses are a part of the hospital and are covered through the liability of the hospital.

        Res Lpsa Loquitur is the principle that the occurrence of an accident implies negligence. So this could be applied if they go to trial for this case. “Even though the correct leg was signed by both the patient and the doctor the wrong legged was prepared by the nurse. This mistake should have been double checked by the surgeon prior to amputation.” The correct leg was signed for the patient and the on one that was not signed was removed, that is something they should have double checked you have the eyes of the nurse as well as the surgeon. Also, the hospital staff was in complete control of the instrumentality that led to Mr. Price’s injury, since he was already anesthetized. It was confirmed that there wasn’t other factors involved there was just a lack of judgement. 

        Lastly, some of the policies of improvement could have been that the hospital should require new employees to be supervised more closely and trained more aggressively. Also, the hospital should require nurses to refer back to patient documents during preparation and that each surgeon double check the prep work of their team before beginning surgery and they should perform a time out. If the policies were not in place they may be ok but, if not then the hospital may be liable for the mistake made.