Many times, an attorney or
patient simply
wants to understand what happened
in the hospital. The anger and grief that nurses are trained to deal with in
the clinical setting continues once the patient returns home. Communication from
the hospital staff, physicians or others during the events in question may not
have been satisfactory, so the family, feeling someone must have been at fault,
turns to the lawyer.
Before accepting a case where
health is involved, an attorney may ask a nurse to review the medical records
and provide an opinion as to possible issues and standards of care.
The nurse's expertise is in
assisting the attorney in understanding the medical information. The attorney performs the legal analysis to
decide whether or not to pursue any case. It is a legal function to state
whether or not a case has merit or does not have merit, but a nurse can help get
to the issues quickly and professionally.
