Suicide medical malpractice: an educational overview
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Leo Sher
Abstract
A malpractice lawsuit is in the legal category of an action in tort, which is a demand for compensation for the damages that have occurred. For a physician to be found liable to a patient for malpractice, four essential elements must be proved to sustain an assertion of malpractice: duty, negligence, harm, and causation. The incidence of malpractice litigation in the field of psychiatry is increasing. The most common malpractice claim related to psychiatric practice is the failure to provide reasonable protection to patients from killing themselves. A psychiatrist should be able to evaluate suicide risk on the basis of all available information, including patient responses to direct and indirect questions, known risk factors, information on how the patient behaved under similar circumstances in the past, and collateral information. Reasonable care necessitates that a patient who is either thought of being or established to be suicidal must be the subject of some precautions. A failure either to soundly assess a patient’s suicide risk or to employ an appropriate safety plan after the suicide potential becomes foreseeable is likely to make a physician liable if the patient is harmed because of a suicide event. It is imperative for a psychiatric office or facility to have a good documentation. Careful documentation of evaluations and treatment interventions with a description of changes related to the patient’s clinical condition indicates clinically and legally appropriate psychiatric care.
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©2015 by De Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- A role for psychiatry in parental override cases
- Reviews
- Forensic psychiatric evaluations: an overview of methods, ethical issues, and criminal and civil assessments
- Underage drinking: does the minimum age drinking law offer enough protection?
- The role of serotonin in adolescent suicide: theoretical, methodological, and clinical concerns
- Biological and environmental predictors of the dysregulation profile in children and adolescents: the story so far
- The role of serotonin in impulsive aggression, suicide, and homicide in adolescents and adults: a literature review
- Outliers in American juvenile justice: the need for statutory reform in North Carolina and New York
- Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), substance use disorders, and criminality: a difficult problem with complex solutions
- Violence among young men: the importance of a gender-specific developmental approach to adolescent male suicide and homicide
- Adolescent mass shootings: developmental considerations in light of the Sandy Hook shooting
- Emotion regulation and adolescent suicide: a proposal for physician education
- Oxytocin and callous-unemotional traits: towards a social-cognitive approach to forensic analysis
- Suicide medical malpractice: an educational overview
- Alcohol and drug use among adolescents: an educational overview
- Original Article
- Victimization exposure and suicidal ideation among Spaniard adolescents evaluated at outpatient mental health services
- Short Communication
- Suicide risk assessment: searching for true positive
- Case Reports
- Taking a toy gun to school: a consideration of the determinants of adolescent forensic behavior in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting
- Suicidal behavior in a medical professional with comorbid depression and substance use disorder: an educational case report
- Low testosterone in a young combat veteran with dual diagnosis and suicidal behavior: a case study
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- A role for psychiatry in parental override cases
- Reviews
- Forensic psychiatric evaluations: an overview of methods, ethical issues, and criminal and civil assessments
- Underage drinking: does the minimum age drinking law offer enough protection?
- The role of serotonin in adolescent suicide: theoretical, methodological, and clinical concerns
- Biological and environmental predictors of the dysregulation profile in children and adolescents: the story so far
- The role of serotonin in impulsive aggression, suicide, and homicide in adolescents and adults: a literature review
- Outliers in American juvenile justice: the need for statutory reform in North Carolina and New York
- Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), substance use disorders, and criminality: a difficult problem with complex solutions
- Violence among young men: the importance of a gender-specific developmental approach to adolescent male suicide and homicide
- Adolescent mass shootings: developmental considerations in light of the Sandy Hook shooting
- Emotion regulation and adolescent suicide: a proposal for physician education
- Oxytocin and callous-unemotional traits: towards a social-cognitive approach to forensic analysis
- Suicide medical malpractice: an educational overview
- Alcohol and drug use among adolescents: an educational overview
- Original Article
- Victimization exposure and suicidal ideation among Spaniard adolescents evaluated at outpatient mental health services
- Short Communication
- Suicide risk assessment: searching for true positive
- Case Reports
- Taking a toy gun to school: a consideration of the determinants of adolescent forensic behavior in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting
- Suicidal behavior in a medical professional with comorbid depression and substance use disorder: an educational case report
- Low testosterone in a young combat veteran with dual diagnosis and suicidal behavior: a case study
