Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Is this a civil or criminal case, when a medical assistant calls in a Rx for a patient and the patient dies?

The doctor is not in the office. the patient calls the office complaining of pains, the medical assistant calls a perscription in to the pharmacy. later the patient has a allergic reaction, rushed to the hospital and dies, would this be civil case or a criminal case?Is this a civil or criminal case, when a medical assistant calls in a Rx for a patient and the patient dies?
I think the patient should have gone to the emergency room complaining of the pains. People die, I don't see the correlation between alleged neglect and your person dying. How would the medical assistant know? How would the pharmacist know of an allergic reaction? It's unfortunate, but I wouldn't count on becoming rich. Is this a civil or criminal case, when a medical assistant calls in a Rx for a patient and the patient dies?
Possibly both. The criminal side would be dispensing a prescription without a license and practicing medicine without a license.





That is unless we're talking about a nurse-practitioner which is a different story.





As for the civil side, its called negligence.





This is all assuming of course that the doctor did not know anything about it and the assistant was acting on his or her own volition.
Well, to begin with the medical assistant would not be calling in a prescription without an order from the doctor, this would be prescribing without a license. If that actually occurred this medical assistant has a LOT of problems to cope with. This would then become a criminal case.
Could be both really, they could come up with involuntary manslughter or something like that.


Definite civil possibilities too - wrongful death
Criminal.
uh, i THINK it's criminal - negligent manslaughter, maybe.
Need the money eh?

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