Medical Liability of Residents in Taiwan Criminal Court: An Analysis of Closed Malpractice Cases

Table 5

Imprisonment sentences and summary of negligent behaviors in the five guilty verdicts.

Specialty	Imprisonment sentences	Negligent behavior
Diagnostic error
Emergency medicine	2 months	Failure to diagnose iatrogenic-colon-perforation-related peritonitis in patient receiving colonoscopy one day before emergency department visit. Resident performed fleet enema under the impression of ileus, which was thought to be a worsening factor for peritonitis by medical appraisal
Emergency medicine	5 months	Failure to reevaluate patient and repeat electrocardiogram (ECG) after patient presented with persisting chest pain and normal initial ECG and troponin-I. Patient collapsed due to ventricular fibrillation before blood test of Troponin-I follow-up
General surgery	6 months	Resident performed neck central venous catheter insertion in pancreatic cancer patient and the subsequent chest film was normal. Patient developed progressive chest pain and collapsed due to delayed massive hemothorax 3 hours later. Resident repeated patient evaluation during the process but was judged guilty because of 1) failure to identify delayed hemothorax and repeat X-ray and 2) failure to seek assistance of duty attending physician
Performance error
General medicine	2 months	Inappropriate management of patient with severe septic shock including delayed intubation, inadequate vital signs monitoring, absence of artery blood gas exam for ventilator adjustment, and inappropriate antibiotics selection
Radiology	12 months	Resident followed disinfection protocol inadequately (failure to replace computed tomography equipment) during contrast injection resulting in cluster malaria infection. Six patients had malaria infection and four of them died. Two attending physicians were also found guilty because of failure to correct the inappropriate protocol