Nursing Negligence in the Hospital Emergency Department

Mancini M. R. Gale A. T. , Emergency Care and the Law (Aspen Systems, Rockville, Md.) (1981) at 43–44.

Telephone conversation between the author and the executive director of the Emergency Department Nurses’ Association, Chicago, Ill. May 1984.

Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Hospitals, Accreditation Manual for Hospitals, 1983 (JCAH, Chicago, Ill.) (1982) at 24.

Mancini & Gale , supra note 1, at 44, 45, citing American Hospital Association, Emergency Services—The Hospital Emergency Department in an Emergency Care System (American Hospital Association, Chicago, Ill.) (1972) at vi.

458 N.E.2d 1072 (Ill. App. 1983).

Id. at 1075.

Id. al 1074–75.

Id. at 1078.

The “strict locality” rule, undergoing considerable judicial erosion, requires a physician to be held to the standard existing in his own community. Recognizing that this rule could prevent a plaintiffs success because a community could have a standard which is, itself, negligent, or that a conspiracy of silence could develop among physicians in a community, courts developed the “similar locality” rule, as in Illinois. Some jurisdictions have abandoned the “locality” rule altogether and hold the physician to the standard of a reasonably competent physician acting under the same or similar circumstances.

648 S.W.2d 391 (Tex. App. 1983).

Id. at 393 n.1.

Id. at 393 n.2

Id. at 394.

Id. at 395.

See Cohn S.D. , Revocation of Nurses' Licenses: How Does It Happen?Law, Medicine & Health Care 11(1):22 (February 1982).

373 A.2d 26 (Md. App. 1977).

Id. at 30.

654 P.2d 263 (Alaska 1982).

Id. at 265–66.

Id. at 266.

Prosser W. , Handbook of the Law of Torts § 30 (West Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minn.) (4th ed. 1971).

The standard of care is distinct from the issue of authority to practice. See Wolff M.A. , Court Upholds Expanded Practice Roles for Nurses, Law, Medicine & Health Care 12(1): 26–29 (February 1984); Greenlaw J. , Sermchief v. Gonzales and the Debate over Advanced Nursing Practice Legislation, Law, Medicine & Health Care 12(1): 30–31 (February 1984).

262 S.E.2d 865 (N.C. App. 1980).

Id. at 867.

Id.

Id. at 868, quoting Byrd v. Hospital, 162 S.E. 738, 740 (N.C. 1932).

Id. at 868 (emphasis added).

175 Cal. Rptr. 177 (Cal. App. 1981).

Id. at 181–82.

Id. at 192 n.6.

Id. at 192.