Historical gaps in physician training have left many healthcare professionals underprepared to treat their women patients with the same standard of care accorded to their male counterparts. In high-stakes areas such as the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease, these lapses can easily result in tragic cases of medical malpractice. Recent advocacy in healthcare has made strides in malpractice prevention campaigns by increasing women’s heart disease awareness for both patients and healthcare providers, and by promoting public health initiatives designed to educate patients and families about women’s rights in healthcare. To learn more about the progress being made in preventing malpractice through women’s healthcare advocacy – or to discuss your malpractice case in which the advances were too little, too late – reach out to an experienced medical injury attorney with Erin Marshall Law. Call 505-218-9949 today to connect with our Albuquerque office.
What Is Advocacy in Healthcare?
The term advocacy covers a variety of efforts, often collective, to bring awareness to issues the advocate considers important. Typically one of the major goals of raising awareness through advocacy is to inform either members of the general public or, sometimes, individuals who stand to be especially affected by the issues the advocates hope to address. Often these results to raise awareness and disseminate information are accompanied by campaigns to change institutional policies in an attempt to bring about systemic change. The American Medical Association (AMA), for instance, highlights that they fulfill their collective commitment to health care advocacy by working to inform lawmakers (who might set policies that affect available treatments and standards for patient care) at both the state and federal levels, guide institutional and governmental decision-making processes, and generate broad-based support for policies that the AMA membership believes will enhance their ability to provide patients with the highest possible quality of care.
What Is Medical Malpractice?
Like advocacy, the word malpractice can cover a range of scenarios. In medical contexts, however, it typically refers to a failure on the part of a healthcare professional to perform appropriate diagnostics or deliver treatments commensurate with what is known as the “standard of care.”
Standard of Care in Law & Medicine
Legally, Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute (LII) explains that “standard of care” typically refers to a person who has a duty of care for any reason acting with the degree of care a responsible person would normally consider appropriate under similar circumstances. In medical fields, however, “standard of care” more commonly refers to the generally accepted treatment(s) for a particular condition or set of symptoms, and is often contrasted with the experimental interventions performed in clinical trials. Another way of looking at this fine distinction is that the degree of care that is “standard” is highly dependent on context, and that meeting the standard of care expected in a medical setting often requires a degree of consideration beyond what might apply outside the context of a provider-patient relationship.
Standard of Care and Physician Responsibility
If you are a patient-participant in a clinical trial, special rules regarding risk will usually apply. Medical researchers in these situations also hold a heightened responsibility with respect to patient communication and informed consent. In most other scenarios, there is an expectation that healthcare professionals will provide their patients with treatment that meets the “standard of care” based on their diagnosis and other clinical factors present in a specific case. Many of the New Mexico medical malpractice cases we see at Erin Marshall arise out of a healthcare provider’s negligence in ensuring a patient is treated with the generally accepted standard of care, in this sense, for their condition.
Medical Malpractice and Standard of Care
Outside the context of the special risk protocols that apply during a clinical trial, failure to treat a patient in accordance with the recognized standard of care may be grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit. Medical malpractice cases are so called not only because they involve medical matters, but because “malpractice” – as a miscarriage of professional responsibility – and the definition of standard of care will both be framed and evaluated in light of the special duty a healthcare provider (often but not always a doctor) has toward their patients.
Advocacy in Healthcare: Preventing Malpractice & Protecting Women’s Rights
Most physicians and other healthcare professionals want to take good care of their patients. Truly “gross” negligence – willful disregard for patient safety – is uncommon, although not unheard-of. A much more widespread problem is carelessness or laxity in diagnostics or treatment, often arising from outdated assumptions that in many cases may unfortunately be reinforced or complicated by implicit bias. As a result, malpractice prevention efforts often emphasize the importance of raising awareness among healthcare providers already practicing medicine, as well as among those still in training.
Women’s Rights Are Patients’ Rights
Unfortunately, female patients can be especially susceptible to the negative effects of systemic issues. Heart disease in women is far more likely to be complicated by a late diagnosis than the same conditions in men, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Numerous studies have found that many doctors do not take women’s reports of pain seriously, and the Global Research and Consulting Initiative found that some 30% of medical schools did not provide instruction on gender-specific health needs – even though women’s heart attack symptoms can differ from those experienced by men, and even though the two sexes have distinct immunological profiles, especially during women’s premenopausal years. Given that women make up no less (some estimates say more) than half the population, the reality is that the medical profession can never truly support patients’ rights without embracing women’s rights – a process that must include bringing the standard of care for women patients up to that of their male peers.
Heart Disease Awareness and Women’s Rights Advocacy in Healthcare
Advocacy in healthcare is not a comprehensive solution to any of the problems facing modern healthcare. Precisely because most medical malpractice cases arise out of “simple” negligence, rather than reckless disregard or outright ill-will, however, advocacy has an important role to play in preventing malpractice by improving awareness, within the medical community, of critical issues that can affect women’s healthcare.
Healthcare advocacy groups like Go Red for Women work together with professional organizations to increase heart disease awareness for female patients and for the healthcare providers who treat them, seeking to close the knowledge gap caused by historic lacunae in medical school curricula. By taking a “two-pronged” approach, aimed at furthering women’s rights advocacy in healthcare settings and empowering women to become informed advocates for their own needs when they find themselves in a doctor’s office, these initiatives strive to create safer and healthier environments for all patients.
Call a Women’s Healthcare Attorney
At Erin Marshall Law, we are passionate about promoting women’s rights as patients through advocacy in healthcare. Malpractice prevention starts with information – for both doctors and patients. Raising heart disease awareness is only one of the many strategies healthcare advocates are employing to improve women’s healthcare outcomes, but we have a long way still to go in preventing malpractice and its devastating effects on women and their families. Contact an experienced advocate and attorney in Albuquerque today by calling 505-218-9949.
