Doctor-patient Conflicts Research Articles

Intelligent treatment system based on bioinformatics and neuro-immune-digestive tract diseases

There are currently many clinical issues plaguing digestive oncologists, including the impact of dietary habits on the occurrence of early gastrointestinal cancer, the association between irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, and early gastrointestinal cancer, the expected changes in gastrointestinal cancer after IBS, IBD, and susceptibility gene mutations, and the mechanisms by which susceptibility gene mutations in gastrointestinal cancer lead to different diseases. Meanwhile, as a carcinogen, betel nut is also prone to cancer and emotional disorders, and there are also many doctor-patient conflicts in the current clinical treatment of digestive tract tumors. To address the aforementioned issues, the research team analyzed dietary habits data using SOM clustering algorithm and isolated forest algorithm. Based on bioinformatics, new therapies have been developed for the pathogenesis and immune pathways of various cancers in the digestive system. Using network pharmacology methods, explore the toxicological mechanism of betel nut and its mechanism in mediating emotional disorders. Molecular docking is used to elucidate drug prediction. Based on four AI algorithms, the occurrence of gastrointestinal cancer was predicted through dietary habits. Using computer vision technology to address the deficiencies in early clinical reporting of cancer. This article provides clinical doctors with new treatment tools.

Research on collaborative development mechanism of multiple stakeholders in medical institutions based on rough set

Reducing doctor-patient conflict is an important part of coordinating doctor-patient disputes and easing doctor-patient relationship, which is conducive to building a harmonious medical environment and promoting the healthy development of medical undertakings. This paper constructs a multi-decision-maker mixed conflict model based on rough set theory, puts forward the matrix operation expression of the conflict degree theory in the Pawlak model, and gives a more objective and scientific evaluation function. Combined with hot issues of doctor-patient conflict, the proposed multi-decision-maker mixed conflict model is applied to doctor-patient conflict, examines the doctor-patient relationship in the medical institution system from multiple internal perspectives, and calculates feasible solutions in the conflict system. The results show that high medical quality, high standardize medication, high institutional efficiency, high staff efficiency, high hospital benefits, high hospital revenue, medium employee development, medium equipment development, or high medical quality, high standardize medication, high institutional efficiency, medium staff efficiency, medium hospital benefits, high hospital revenue, high employee development, and high equipment development are important conditions for building a harmonious medical environment and reducing doctor-patient conflicts.

An Intelligent Medical Q&A System Based on Natural Language Processing

Aim: To improve the accuracy of Chinese word splitting. Background: With the development of Internet technology, people want to get some effective medical information from the Internet, but there are still technical difficulties for non-specialists. At the same time, the level of medical construction can not keep up with the demand of patients for medical treatment, the phenomenon of doctor-patient conflicts has not been fundamentally solved, and the problem of difficult consultation prevails. With the arrival of the era of big data and artificial intelligence, medical Q&A has been applied. Objective: In order to meet the user's need to get the correct answer as soon as possible, medical Q&A needs to have high execution efficiency. The accuracy of Chinese participle directly affects the execution efficiency of Q&A. Improving the accuracy of Chinese participle can fundamentally improve the accuracy of medical Q&A and shorten the answering time. Methods: Improvement of the Chinese Segmentation Algorithm based on BI-LSTM-CRF using natural language processing technology. Based on the same medical Q&A dataset, the medical Q&A is trained and tested under three commonly used segmentation algorithms and the segmentation algorithm designed in this paper. Results: The experiments show that the Chinese Segmentation Algorithm studied in this paper improves the accuracy of medical Q&A and can improve the execution efficiency of medical Q&A. Conclusion: Based on the calculation and matching process of the same similar answers, different word-splitting methods directly affect the effect of medical Q&A in the later stage. The better the effect of segmentation, the higher the accuracy of the correct answers in medical Q&A. The improved LSTM-CRF split word accuracy designed in this paper achieves a good split word effect in the training process. Compared with the HMM segmentation algorithm, which has the best segmentation performance among the other three algorithms, the segmentation accuracy is improved, and the accuracy of the Q&A that delivers the correct answers is relatively high. Despite the improved accuracy in segmenting the medical dataset, the time complexity did not decrease much. The LSTMCRF combined network segmentation algorithm designed in this paper performs better in medical Q&A compared to other commonly used segmentation algorithms in terms of subject operating characteristics and larger regions surrounded by coordinate axes.

Research on the Identification of Medical Damage Cases

Medical disputes are acute social problems caused by many factors. With the further deepening of the reform of the medical system, doctor-patient conflicts have become more prominent, and their common manifestation is the dispute over the attribution of medical accidents. How to prevent disputes, alleviate medical conflicts, properly deal with medical tort cases, and improve and refine the legal mechanism of doctor-patient conflicts are particularly important. For a long time, due to the complex and professional characteristics of medical damage cases and the status difference between doctors and patients, and the application of medical damage compensation law involving a large number of professional and complex evidence issues, it has become the primary problem for the district court to accurately grasp the evidence of the case in medical tort litigation, and rationally use the evidence to make a fair judgment. The crux of medical disputes lies in the evidence problem. In view of the strong professionalism in medical disputes, expert opinions and expert assistants' opinions often become the core evidence, and their accurate examination and judgment become the top priority in the settlement of medical damage cases. At present, the appraisal of medical damage faces many specific difficulties and challenges. Therefore, this paper advocates the introduction of a reasonable dialogue mechanism between technology and rules, such as evidence-based evidence from the medical perspective of technology, auxiliary rules construction.

Surgeons' mental distress and risks after severe complications following radical gastrectomy in China: a nationwide cross-sectional questionnaire.

This study was designed to investigate incidences of surgeons' mental distress following severe complications after radical gastrectomy. A cross-sectional survey was conducted between 1 June 2021 and 30 September 2021 among Chinese general and/or gastrointestinal surgeons who experienced severe complications after radical gastrectomy. The clinical features collected in the questionnaire included: (i) feeling burnout, anxiety, or depression; (ii) avoiding radical gastrectomy or feeling stress, slowing down the process during radical gastrectomy operations; (iii) having physical reactions, including heart pounding, trouble breathing, or sweating while recalling; (iv) having urges to quit being a surgeon; (v) taking psychiatric medications; and (vi) seeking psychological counselling. Analyses were performed to identify risk factors of severe mental distress, which was defined as meeting three or more of the above-mentioned clinical features. A total of 1062 valid questionnaires were received. The survey showed that most of the participating surgeons (69.02%) had at least one clinical feature of mental distress following severe complications after radical gastrectomy, and more than 25% of the surgeons suffered from severe mental distress. Surgeons from non-university affiliated hospitals, the junior surgeons, and existing violent doctor-patient conflicts were recognized as independent risk factors for surgeons' severe mental distress related to the severe complications after radical gastrectomy. About 70% of surgeons had mental health problems following severe complications after radical gastrectomy, and more than 25% of the surgeons suffered from severe mental distress. More strategies and policies are needed to improve the mental well-being of these surgeons after such incidences.

Health mediation - the aseptic system for conflict management in health

Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms (ADRM) are a possibility to resolve conflicts without the need to go to trial. The most used are mediation, conciliation, and arbitration. In this review we will focus specifically on mediation as an alternative for the resolution of medical legal conflicts. Where the history of the ADRM in Mexico and the evidence of the failure of the adversarial method for the resolution of doctor-patient conflicts will be reviewed. In addition, the incomplete role of the application in our country of the ADRM in the legal field will be highlighted and finally the successful experience of mediation to resolve this type of conflict in other countries of the world will be presented. In this way, the objective of this narrative review is to show that mediation can be an effective and beneficial option to resolve medical conflicts in a fair and equitable manner for all parties involved.

Research on the Experience of Influencing Elements and the Strategy Model of Children’s Outpatient Medical Services under the Guidance of Design Thinking

Faced with the generally poor experience in pediatric outpatient in China, under the guidance of design thinking, based on the analysis and research of the main elements affecting child outpatients’ medical service experiences, this study proposes a set of strategic models that can improve child outpatients’ medical service experiences. Specifically, this study takes Shanghai Xinhua Hospital as a research case, combined with SPSS data statistics software, and comprehensively uses preliminary field research methods, questionnaire descriptive analysis methods, questionnaire satisfaction analysis methods, and questionnaire principal component analysis (PCA) methods as well as the structured interview method; thus, the main elements affecting child outpatients’ medical service experiences were obtained. Then, according to the main elements, a set of child outpatient medical service strategy models is proposed to improve child outpatients’ medical service experiences. Finally, the effectiveness of the strategy model is tested through satisfaction analysis and simulation case verification. The model is a people-centered, sustainable strategic model. With the support of design thinking, the strategic model takes the experience of children as the core improvement point, which is able to fully protect the rights and demands of child patients. At the same time, this strategy model can also reduce the workload of doctors, improve the operational efficiency of hospitals, promote a more equal distribution of medical resources, and reduce medical service costs. More importantly, it also encourages patients and their families to communicate and express their opinions to medical professionals, which can greatly reduce the tension between doctors and patients and effectively avoid doctor–patient conflicts. This has important implications for the sustainability of healthcare. However, this strategy model is only a guiding strategy for improving outpatient care for children. It does not provide detailed solutions around certain specific issues and specific implementations. At the same time, it is not a complex engineering design system but only provides a reference for improving children’s medical services in terms of strategic logic.

Developing a Systematic-Dynamic Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis: A Study Protocol in the Context of the Doctor–Patient Relationship in Western China

Chinese scholarship conducting/attempting critical discourse analysis (CDA) on the doctor–patient relationship in China has, to date, predominantly relied on the use of analytical tools from systemic functional linguistics and pragmatics. This methodological orientation, by prioritizing the linguistic structure and functions of the textual data, does not tend to take into consideration the sociocultural contexts, complex power relations, genealogy of discourse, and practice-orientedness of discourse that CDA approaches usually touch on. This protocol article proposes a research design that constructs a systematic-dynamic CDA approach in the context of the doctor–patient relationship in western China in order to incorporate the aforementioned factors that previous Chinese scholarship has ignored. Physicians, cancer patients and their family members, and CDA methodologists are to be recruited to participate in focus groups and interviews to discuss the doctor–patient relationship from their own experience and to inform the construction of an integrated CDA approach. Qualitative context analysis will be adopted to analyze texts transcribed from interviews and focus groups, in order to generate themes and new concepts for the design of a novel systematic-dynamic CDA framework. By establishing an integrated CDA approach tailored to the doctor–patient relationship in western China, we will be able to provide empirical evidence and valuable insights to practitioners and policymakers to ease doctor–patient conflicts, which have intensified in recent years, and facilitate more harmonious relationships.

Research on the Cooperative Governance Path of Multiple Stakeholders in Doctor-Patient Disputes under the Environment of Information Asymmetry.

The number of doctor-patient conflicts and disputes in China has been increasing recently. In order to solve the current social problems of the tense doctor-patient relationship and frequent medical disputes, this article, based on grounded theory, uses qualitative analysis software to conduct grounded coding on 622 cases of doctor-patient disputes randomly selected by stratification. After successively adopting open, axial, and selective coding, the relationship structure between the causes and development of medical disputes is summarized. Furthermore, this relationship structure can be used to analyze further and discuss the causes of doctor-patient disputes from the perspective of multiple co-governance and the governance framework of doctor-patient disputes. Finally, it reminds us of the need to standardize government's regulatory responsibilities, promote the equal distribution of medical resources, strengthen the communication awareness between doctors and patients, reduce the information asymmetry between doctors and patients, and build a preventive mechanism-oriented multi-subject collaborative governance path to promote the relationship between doctors and patients in China. We provide relevant countermeasures and suggestions for harmonious development and the smooth resolution of doctor-patient conflicts.

Exploring the Necessity of Psychological Rounds and Psychological Interventions in General Hospitals in the Post-COVID-19 Period.

ObjectiveTo explore the necessity of psychological rounds and psychological intervention in the post-COVID-19 period in a general hospital.MethodsBased on the current pandemic influence on Chinese people’s psychology, the medical experience, and environment were analyzed, and the feasibility of psychological evaluation and intervention were appraised with the psychological changes that might be brought by the medical behaviors, especially for surgical operations.ResultsNowadays, the pandemic is under full control in China, although the pandemic is rampant abroad. In China, the “Normalized pandemic prevention” phase has begun. In the post-COVID-19 period, the prolonged pandemic has made numerous people pessimistic, angry, and other negative emotions. Several general hospitals are facing huge influences: under the influence of anxiety, such as “higher hospital-acquired infection rate,” the patient attendance rate is reduced, and the hospital income is sharply reduced. Doctor–patient conflicts are more likely to occur during the medical procedures, affecting the medical experience, and reducing the rate of re-visit and referral.ConclusionAfter analyzing a series of “endogenous” and “exogenous” factors of medical procedures in a general hospital in the post-pandemic period, it suggests that anxiety and depression caused by uncertainties in the medical procedures may be more obvious. Also, it is necessary to pay attention to the psychological status of patients and carry out psychological rounds and psychological interventions in general hospitals. The service quality can be improved, the medical experience can be ameliorated, and it can help general hospitals to turn “crisis” into “opportunity,” which also brings better development.

Remote Care Assistance in Emergency Department Based on Smart Medical.

Smart medical care is user-centric, medical information is the main line, and big data, Internet of Things, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and other technologies are used to establish scientific and accurate information, as well as an efficient and reasonable medical service system. Smart medical plays an important role in alleviating doctor-patient conflicts caused by information asymmetry, regional health differences caused by irrational allocation of medical resources, and improving medical service levels. This article mainly introduces the remote care assistance system of emergency department based on smart medical and intends to provide some ideas and directions for the technical research of patients in emergency department receiving remote care. This paper proposes a research method for remote care assistance in emergency departments based on smart medical, including an overview of remote care based on smart medical, remote care sensor real-time monitoring algorithms based on smart medical, signal detection algorithms, and signal clustering algorithms for smart medical. Remote care in the emergency department assisted in research experiments. The experimental results show that 86.0% of patients like the remote care system based on smart medical studied in this paper.

Analysis of Doctor-Patient Relationship in Post-COVID-19 Period: Perspective Differences Between Citizen and Medical Staff.

To evaluate the current views on doctor–patient relationship (DPR) between citizens and medical staff in post-Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) period and predict the possible factors of DPR, we distributed questionnaires by a online questionnaire platform--Questionnaire Star (https://www.wjx.cn) to evaluate DPR in post-COVID-19 period. Overall, 312 questionnaires for citizens and 421 questionnaires for medical staff were completed. Citizens felt that service attitude and communication with medical staff, and registering process have been improved. And their trust in doctors has increased by 86.8%. Majority of citizens (66.0%) preferred the tertiary hospitals. If doctor–patient contradictions occurred, 62.9% citizens preferred internal negotiation (with the doctor involved, 44.6%; with hospital management department, 18.3%). There was significant difference of views on the causes of medical violence incidents and the reasons for doctor–patient conflicts in the future between citizens and medical staff. The DPR score of medical staff was lower than citizens at each stage, and even showed a downward tendency in post-COVID-19 period. Furthermore, 20.4% medical staff believed that harmonious DPR would not be maintained, which was distinct from that of the citizens. Combating the COVID-19 provided an important opportunity to improve the DPR. However, unbalanced allocation of high-quality medical resources, gap between the actual treatment efficacy and patient’s expectation, fairness and efficiency issues, financial conflicts, and medical information symmetry were still the influencing factors of DPR.

Nurses' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors toward venous thromboembolism prophylaxis: How to do better.

To investigate the cognition of nurses on the control and treatment of venous thromboembolism in China, thereby providing suitable countermeasures for clinical venous thromboembolism prophylaxis and treatment. In December 2019, a total of 1121 registered nurses from a university-affiliated hospital were selected to answer the self-designed and electronic questionnaire (Wenquanxing: www.wjx.cn/), which was designed to evaluate the nurses' knowledge (21 items), attitudes (6 items), and behaviors (9 items) toward venous thromboembolism prophylaxis. Descriptive, correlation, and regression analyses were conducted for data analysis. Of the included 1121 nurses, only 55.43% nurses selected 100% correct answer. The influencing factors of knowledge included the department, education, professional ranks, and venous thromboembolism nursing experience. The nurses from ICU department gained the highest score, but the nurses from pediatrics department obtained the lowest score. The nurses with higher education level and professional ranks, and nursing experiences achieved higher scores. The total positive response rate for the attitude-related items was 68.54%. Nurses were primarily concerned about the financial penalty due to the inability to complete the work (49.0%). An increasing workload is the second primary concern of nurses (40.8%). The increasing medical cost, extension of hospital stay, and exacerbation of doctor-patient conflicts were the most serious difficulties involved in venous thromboembolism prophylaxis. The total correct score rate for the behaviors was 56.19%. Nearly half of the nurses could not offer advice for venous thromboembolism patients. The nursing experience, department, and years of work were related to the scores of knowledge-related items (all P < 0.05). The overall knowledge level of the nurses was not optimistic. Although their general attitude toward venous thromboembolism prophylaxis was positive, their behaviors were influenced by many factors. Administrators should, therefore, make countermeasures to deal with these problems.

Impact of iatrogenic biliary injury during laparoscopic cholecystectomy on surgeon's mental distress: a nationwide survey from China

BackgroundIatrogenic biliary injury (IBI) following laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) is the most serious iatrogenic complications. Little is known whether LC-IBI would lead to surgeon's severe mental distress (SMD). MethodsA cross-sectional survey in the form of electronic questionnaire was conducted among Chinese general surgeons who have caused LC-IBI. The six collected clinical features relating to mental distress included: 1) feeling burnout, anxiety, or depression, 2) avoiding performing LC, 3) having physical reactions when recalling the incidence, 4) having the urge to quit surgery, 5) taking psychiatric medications, and 6) seeking professional psychological counseling. Univariable and multivariable analyses were performed to identify risk factors of SMD, which was defined as meeting ≥3 of the above-mentioned clinical features. ResultsAmong 1466 surveyed surgeons, 1236 (84.3%) experienced mental distress following LC-IBI, and nearly half (49.7%, 614/1236) had SMD. Multivariable analyses demonstrated that surgeons from non-university affiliated hospitals (OR:1.873), patients who required multiple repair operations (OR:4.075), patients who required hepaticojejunostomy/partial hepatectomy (OR:1.859), existing lawsuit litigation (OR:10.491), existing violent doctor–patient conflicts (OR:4.995), needing surgeons' personal compensation (OR:2.531), and additional administrative punishment by hospitals (OR:2.324) were independent risk factors of surgeon's SMD. ConclusionFour out of five surgeons experienced mental distress following LC-IBI, and nearly half had SMD. Several independent risk factors of SMD were identified, which could help to make strategies to improve surgeons' mental well-being.

A qualitative study on differences of nurses' cognition on workplace violence under different perspectives

Objective To understand the cognition of experiencers and witnesses on workplace violence (WPV) in nurses and to analyze the differences among them so as to provide a theoretical basis for formulating intervention. Methods From February to May 2018, totals of 26 nurses, experiencers and witnesses of WPV, at a hospital in Suzhou were selected as subjects by purposive sampling to carry out semi-structured interview with the method of descriptive qualitative study. Content analysis was used to the data. Results Under different perspectives, the differences of nurses' cognition on WPV included three aspects involving subject responsibility attribution, pre-recognition in advance and organizational support of WPV. Experiencers thought that patients had great responsibilities on violence, WPV was difficult to identify, lack of organizational support. Witnesses showed that nurses and patients matched each other in responsibilities, WPV could be identified in advance, the ways of organizational support needed diversification. Conclusions Under different perspectives, there are differences in nurses' cognition on WPV. Hospital managers should strengthen the building of security, and improve nurses' violence identification and coping capacity to reduce the incidence of hospital violent incidents. Key words: Nurses; Workplace violence; Doctor-patient conflicts; Cognition; Qualitative study

Rethinking of the Chinese Approach to Physician Apology Legislation: From the Legislative Dilemma of Transplantation

Physician apology legislation has gradually become a new legislative measure to resolve medical conflicts and repair doctor-patient relationship in many countries outside the region. In almost all cases using voice, to calm analysis found that the legislation of our country doctors apologize transplantation may face an apology from responsibility way to large span, dispute resolution mechanism from the free will to the legislative mandate disorders significantly, from general to special legislation difficulties facing a predicament, and make an apology may make doctors in passive in the moral, intensifies the doctor-patient conflicts, etc. In order to resolve the dilemma and establish a physician apology system adapted to China’s national conditions, we should weaken the concept of apology liability through education, incorporate the elements of apology into the mediation mechanism of medical disputes, take the regulations on prevention and handling of medical disputes as a legislative breakthrough, and widely implement the patient safety system.

Chinese medical students and residents' perspectives on medical education for professional role formation: an exploratory cross-sectional study

BackgroundPronounced doctor–patient conflicts and physician attrition in China are thought to be secondary to inadequate training professionalism during medical school. We aimed to explore Chinese medical students and residents' perspectives on professional role formation. MethodsThis exploratory study consisted of medical students and residents from 85 medical schools and teaching hospitals across China. A questionnaire was distributed for participants to rate 17 items that are important to professional role formation. We did statistical analyses using SPSS version 20. Ethical approval was obtained from the institutional review board of the principal investigator's institution. FindingsOf the 1746 medical students and residents included in this study, “morality and codes of behaviour” was viewed as the most important element of professionalism (n=480 [27·5%]), followed by ”altruism” (n=427 [24·5%]), “integrity and honesty” (n=293 [16·8%]), “compassion and caring attitudes” (n=124 [7·1%]), and “social accountability” (n=119 [6·8%]). The elements perceived by medical students as most insufficiently taught in school were “integrity and honesty” (37·4% intention–action gap), followed by “morality and codes of behaviour” (24·4% intention–action gap). InterpretationPhysicians' professional role formation involves experience and reflection. What defines professionalism might differ between cultures, and this study indicated that Chinese medical society views “morality and codes of behaviour” as the highest value in the profession, although insufficiently taught. Rethinking and remediation of medical education would be helpful to strengthen a societal specific doctor–patient relationship. FundingRepublic of China Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST 105-2629-S-010-001).

Analysis of Chilean Supreme Court rulings in medical malpractice cases, 2014–2015

ObjectiveThe objective of the present study is to characterise the epidemiological and legal data on medical malpractice ruled by the Chilean Supreme Court (CSC) in the years 2014 and 2015. Material and methodA search of the CSC electronic database was conducted to identify and analyse CSC rulings for criminal and civil medical malpractice cases. ResultsA total of 110 malpractice cases were identified. The CSC received only civil cases of medical malpractices during the studied period. The average duration of the trial was 39 months. Gynaecologists faced suits more frequently than any other type of specialist. The majority of cases were associated with the public health system. More claims were associated with scheduled than with emergency care. Likewise, more claims were associated with non-surgical treatment than with surgical procedures. More than a third (39%) of the cases resulted in the patient's death. The majority of CSC rulings were in favour of the defendants. ConclusionsAn urgent analysis of the risk factors is necessary, not only of the occurrence of malpractice, but also of doctor–patient conflicts by judicial means, especially in the gynaecological-obstetrics area. In addition, considering that the trials not only involve a high economic cost, but also psychological and emotional one, for all involved, an analysis of the judicial mechanisms of these types of cases could help resolve them, and when possible, in preliminary courts or in shorter judicial processes, benefiting all parties.

Development of a self-assessment tool for resident doctors’ communication skills in India

PurposeEffective communication skills are essential for resident doctors to provide optimum patient care. This study was conducted to develop and validate a questionnaire for the self-assessment of resident doctors’ communication skills in India.MethodsThis was a mixed-methods study conducted in 2 phases. The first phase consisted of questionnaire development, including the identification of relevant literature, focus group discussions with residents and experts from clinical specialties, and pre-testing of the questionnaire. The second phase involved administering the questionnaire survey to 95 residents from the Departments of Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Pediatrics, and Surgery at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India in April 2019. Internal consistency was tested and the factor structure was analyzed to test construct validity.ResultsThe questionnaire consisted of 3 sections: (A) 4 items on doctor-patient conflicts and the role of communication skills in avoiding these conflicts, (B) 29 items on self-assessment of communication skills in different settings, and (C) 8 items on barriers to practicing good communication skills. Sections B and C had good internal consistency (Cronbach α: 0.885 and 0.771, respectively). Section C had a 2-factor solution, and the barriers were classified as ‘training’ and ‘infrastructure’ factors.ConclusionThis appears to be a valid assessment tool of resident doctors’ communication skills, with potential utility for identifying gaps in communication skills and developing communication skills modules.

Análisis de los fallos de la Corte Suprema de Justicia de Chile en casos de responsabilidad médica, años 2014 y 2015

ObjectiveThe objective of the present study is to characterise the epidemiological and legal data on medical malpractice ruled by the Chilean Supreme Court (CSC) in the years 2014 and 2015. Material and methodA search of the CSC electronic database was conducted to identify and analyse CSC rulings for criminal and civil medical malpractice cases. ResultsA total of 110 malpractice cases were identified. The CSC received only civil cases of medical malpractices during the studied period. The average duration of the trial was 39 months. Gynaecologists faced suits more frequently than any other type of specialist. The majority of cases were associated with the public health system. More claims were associated with scheduled than with emergency care. Likewise, more claims.were associated with non-surgical treatment than with surgical procedures. More than a third (39%) of the cases resulted in the patient's death. The majority of CSC rulings were in favour of the defendants. ConclusionsAn urgent analysis of the risk factors is necessary, not only of the occurrence of malpractice, but also of doctor-patient conflicts by judicial means, especially in the gynaecological-obstetrics area. In addition, considering that the trials not only involve a high economic cost, but also psychological and emotional one, for all involved, an analysis of the judicial mechanisms of these types of cases could help resolve them, and when possible, in preliminary courts or in shorter judicial processes, benefiting all parties.