Legal disputes of medical practice performed by nurse practitioners

• Main Authors: Chen, Shiou-Sheng, 陳修聖
• Other Authors: Lee, Sheng-Chieh
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/hr322c

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 法學院碩士在職專班 === 105 === The participation of nurse practitioners in medical practice is a must in Taiwan now. Although amendment of law about the clinical practice for nurse practitioners was made, there are still some issues which should be further evaluated. The scope of medical practice for nurse practitioners includes invasive and non-invasive medical procedures, which were defined more clearly in the revised articles, but some ambiguous situations still persist. The juridical responsibility of doctors and nurse practitioners for medical disputes remains unclear. There is lots of space of improvement which bureau of Health and hospitals can do after the revision of related law for nurse practitioners. The method of this research is a case study including case facts, the decision of the court and the issue of disputes. This is a medical dispute regarding doctors and a nurse practitioner, which occurred in December, 2006.This is the first medical dispute happening in Taiwan after the establishment of official examination for nurse practitioners. The defendants were accused for guilty because of causing death of a patient due to professional negligence. The verdict of the superior criminal court in Taiwan in 2011 after public prosecution was as follows. The attending physician was sentenced for one year, reduced to six months and probated for 2 years because of causing death of a patient due to professional negligence. The nurse practitioner was sentenced for six months, reduced to three months and probated for 2 years because of causing death of a patient due to professional negligence. The future amendment for the law regarding nurse practitioners is as follows: first, to enact the specific scope of medical practice for nurse practitioners according to the law; second, to legalize the directions from doctors; third, to specify the definition of assisted medical practice performed by nurse practitioners; fourth, to establish the standard for evaluating the ability of nurse practitioners; fifth, to elevate and evaluate the quality of medical service from nurse practitioners; sixth, how to strengthen the training programs of nurse practitioners, to build the verification standard of hospitals which can train nurse practitioners and improve the system of accreditation; seventh, to create rational ratio of nurse practitioners to patients; eighth, to clarify whether nurse practitioners can be on duty and in shifts in the hospital according to the law. In addition, the impact for nurse practitioners by introducing physician assistant to medical service suggested by Bureau of Health is high because there is lots of overlap of medical practice between the two professionals. We hope that the participation of verified nurse practitioners under the regulation of specific law can improve the quality of medical service, otherwise, we are afraid that nurse practitioners may break the law, become fake doctors and be sentenced, which will cause great impact and bad influence of medical service in Taiwan.