Azzara illustrates comparative fault
...By comparative negligence, the jury ruled in favor of the physician and the patient recovered no damages (Hudson & Moore, 2011, 602)."
The legal advice that the authors provide is to document communication of the medical information with charts and other data. Additionally, the patient needs to be contacted for follow up. If the patient can not be contacted, then this should be documented as well in the patient's file (ibid.). Better documentation could have exonerated Dr. Azzara completely.
The above was also the legal opinion of Douglas H. Cook in an article in the American University Law Review when he noted that "The court thus recognized that potential plaintiffs have an inherent
responsibility to participate in the management of and, if possible, the minimization of their own damages (Cook, 1995, 1255).
" Thus, the patient is partially responsible for the maintenance of their treatment and if they refuse the advice of the physician, it is the grounds for mitigation in a malpractice lawsuit.
Conclusion
Azzara there existed a material issue of fact about whether the patient's failure to follow the medical care instructed may have contributed to the harm caused. We also considered whether or not a physician should be immune from liability in those cases in which the patient's contribution to the harm suffered was as great as the physician's contribution. It is the author's opinion that the failure of Ostrowski to follow Azzara's medical advice contributed to her problems following the removal of her toenail. It was the author's findings that if Dr. Azzara would have had better documentation, he could have won the case totally in court.
References
Cook, DH (1995). Personal responsibility and the law of torts. American University Law Review, 45,
1245-1274.
Hudson, M.J., & Moore, G.P. (2011). Defenses to malpractice: What every emergency physician should know. The Journal of Emergency Medicine, 41(6), 598 -- 606.
Ostrowski v. azzara. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.quimbee.com/cases/707337 .
