Page 44 - OB Risks - Delivering the Goods (Part One)

SVMIC Obstetrics Risks: Delivering the Goods

so that he could perform his own assessment of the fetal
heart tracing.

A physician reviewer for the defense team noted the
nursing documentation of the information shared with

the obstetrician was very limited, raising concerns about
whether the appropriate communication took place

during the mother’s stay in the hospital. The defense
reviewer further noted that it is the physician’s responsibility

to obtain the information needed in order to make
decisions about the patient’s care and treatment. In this

case, the obstetrician should have inquired in more detail
about the presenting symptoms of the mother and baby,

and evaluated the information relayed by the nurse. He
should have gone to the hospital himself in order to

evaluate the fetal heart tracings. Had he done so, he
would have been able to make treatment decisions based

upon his personal assessment of the mother and baby,
instead of relying on the information given to him by the

nurse. His failure to engage in more detailed discussion
with the staff resulted in a demise that may have been

avoidable had he been prompted to validate the nursing
assessment by performing his own. This failure to

communicate clearly with the hospital staff proved
ultimately to be indefensible.

This case is an example of the line from the 1967 Paul Newman

movie classic, Cool Hand Luke – “What we’ve got here is failure
to communicate.” That is not a position any healthcare provider
11
wants to try to explain to a jury.

11 “Cool Hand Luke” Warner Bros. (1967)

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