CRIMINAL LEGAL SIGNIFICANCE OF MEDICINAL ERROR

Abstract

An article deals with the problem of medical errors in the practice of medical professionals. Some issues of differentiation of a medical error from criminal negligence are considered. It has been established that the occurrence of medical errors has objective and subjective prerequisite. Objective prerequisites are related to factors independent of the doctor’s personality: poor quality medication, medical equipment breakdown, physiological peculiarities of the patient’s body, etc. Subjective prerequisites are experience, qualification of a doctor, execution of instructions and standards, personal relations of doctor-patient, that is, the degree of their mutual trust. The criteria for distinguishing a medical error occurred from negligence have been determined (a doctor acts within the limits of the corresponding professional norms established in the field of medicine; the honest mistake of a doctor; objective reasons of the honest mistake; presence of various illnesses in a patient when the clinical picture of one disease is distorted due to the overlay of another pathological process; short-term stay of a patient in a medical institution, etc.; difficult objective conditions of work; impossibility to anticipate negative consequences (there is no obligatory sign of the subjective side in the case of occurrence of a medical error: a fault in the form of negligence (criminal negligence or criminal self-confidence).