Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) SLC Practice Exam

A patient dies from a heart attack after being dismissed by a doctor without tests for chest pain. This is an example of?

1. Sentinel Event

2. Medical Negligence

3. Medical Malpractice

4. Informed Consent Violation

The correct answer is: Medical Malpractice

The scenario described represents an instance of medical malpractice. This occurs when a healthcare professional fails to provide standard care, resulting in harm to a patient. In this case, the doctor’s decision to dismiss the patient without conducting tests for reported chest pain could be seen as a breach of the duty of care owed to the patient. By not evaluating the patient's condition appropriately, the physician's actions could be considered negligent, especially given the serious potential consequences associated with chest pain, such as a heart attack. Medical malpractice typically involves three components: a duty of care, a breach of that duty, and damage resulting from that breach. Here, the doctor had a duty to assess the patient's symptoms properly, the failure to conduct necessary tests constitutes a breach of that duty, and tragically, the patient’s death from a heart attack exemplifies the damage caused by that negligence. While other terms like sentinel event and medical negligence relate to healthcare practices and errors, they do not specifically encapsulate the legal implications or the patient's aftermath in the same way that medical malpractice does in this context. Informed consent violation pertains to the failure to notify a patient about risks and alternatives before a procedure or treatment, which is not applicable here since the issue revolves around diagnostic negligence rather than consent.