Tragically, this “false sense of
security in technology”, and disregard for clinical thoroughness has led many
PAs down the wrong path. Particularly, when the patient suffered an adverse
outcome. Much to their career’s detriment, some PAs never realized that they
incurred in significant self-liability risk exposures when adopting these detrimental
clinical style practices or attitudinal views.
Unfortunately to their chagrin in
these instances, they found themselves embroiled in lawsuits alleging two common
types of negligent claims committed: either by “omission” or “commission”,
stemming from their poor history-taking style. All this stems from the fact
that many do not know how to elicit a good, detailed history from the patient
or simply due to clinical laziness. In other instances, due to insufficient
time. Often is not so much what was not queried, but how was it asked? In other
words, not probing for historic temporal specificities regarding onset,
duration, frequency, location, etc. of the ailment/illness. In essence, the
root of this clinical complacency habit can be seen most commonly when asking
closed-ended questions as opposed to using open-ended questions.
Case in point, a chief complaint of
chest pain can have multiple etiologies as the underlying cause. Non-rephrasing
or not re-querying a patient until a detailed history and thorough physical
exam have been performed can lead the PA easily astray in his/her
decision-making process. Thus, at best potentially robs the patient of an
optimum outcome or an aggressive strategy if called for & at worse places
the PA provider @ legal risk. Particularly when dealing with some life-threatening
situations, thus muddying the clinical picture or presentation at hand.
Plus, another significant derailing factor is the lack of
considering & documenting the clinical decision-making process along with
listing respective Differential diagnoses along with the potential
probabilities and what diagnostics were undertaken or other data refuted the likelihood
of them in the workup.