Professional responsibility of a medical professional and patient safety from the perspective of a clinician

Abstract

   Responsibility of medical professionals has been discussed with varying degrees of intensity for many years among healthcare professionals and in the media. The established practice of holding a medical professional accountable when claims are received from patients and their legal representatives in the event of unfavorable treatment outcomes indicates that the guilt of a specialist in most cases is determined by his or her actions or inactions. The authors give arguments and discuss that, along with errors that occur directly to the medical professional, there are factors that influence the outcome of the treatment, including those caused by the characteristics of the patient himself, which cannot be foreseen and which generally remain unknown to the society.