Legal aspects of the responsibility of a dentist or surgeon when making a medical error

Abstract

Currently, healthcare is shifting to value-based approaches to providing medical care. This expands the rights of citizens in the field of accessibility of medical services and improves their quality. For healthcare, this approach is expressed not just in optimizing financial resources, but in using them wisely, thanks to the flexibility of the system. Unfortunately, providing medical care in some cases can harm the patient. There are many reasons for this. The doctor may make a mistake both at the stage of diagnosis and at the stage of treatment. There is no universal classification of medical errors that fully covers their types in the context of each individual specialty, the causes of the commission, the impact on the outcome, etc. In the article, we model and consider the situation of removal by a dentist-surgeon of a healthy tooth. The analysis of the doctor’s actions and their consequences, the probability and amount of compensation for material and moral damage caused. The possibility of pre-trial resolution of conflicts between the patient and the dental clinic is considered. The identification and study of the structure of defects in medical care provides opportunities to reduce the likelihood of medical error and, consequently, improve the quality of medical care to the population. Medicine is developing, so the term medical error requires not just a modern view, but also official recognition as a problem. It is necessary to supplement and clarify it, for ease of use in official medical documents.