Week 3 Case Study
Samantha Ryg Allied Health Institute Law and Ethics Diana, Shannon May 30, 2013 Abstract In this week I will be writing about a case study on a Dentist who satisfied the 4 d’s of negligence. I will be explaining and telling the definition of each D and what it stands. The four D’s consists of Duty, Dereliction, Direct Cause and Damages.
A dentist practicing in a small town fits several children whom he sees as patients with braces. After many unsatisfactory patient outcomes, including bites that are misaligned, removal of permanent teeth in error, and gum infections from improperly tightened braces, a local attorney discovers that the dentist is not trained or licensed as an orthodontist.
The attorney institutes a class action lawsuit on behalf of the dentist’s dissatisfied patients.
How has the dentist’s behavior satisfied the 4 Ds of negligence? Please be sure to answer this question completely by providing a definition for each of the 4 Ds of negligence and then explaining how the dentist satisfied all of them. First of all the Dentist was not trained or licensed to work on anyone so there is a mistake right there. He acted in the four d’s of negligence by causing damages to the patient. He is the direct cause of the damages done to each patient.
He was not licensed or trained to perform any operation on the patient which falls under the derelictions and the duty of the d’s.
The four d’s consists of: Duty which is the person charged with the negligence owed a duty of a case to the accuser Dereliction which is the health care provider breached to the duty to the care of the patient Direct Cause which is the breach of the duty of care to the patient that as a direct cause. Damages which is a legally recognizable injury to the patient.
The dentist satiated them all by not being trained or licenses to do any work on the patients and by him not even being trained he caused damages to the patients and he was the direct cause of the unsatisfied patients that had received the damages. He also failed to care for the patients in the correct way which falls underneath the duty of his job which can fall under the dereliction which he failed to treat the patients with the correct kind of care. I believe the doctor should be sued for his negligence to properly care for each patient.
