Medical litigation experience of the victim of medical accident: a qualitative case study

ABSTRACT

This study aims to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the life experience of victims of medical accidents after medical accidents and medical litigations. A single victim of a medical accident participated in the study. Six upper categories were derived as the results: “frustration and anger toward medical accident occurrence,” “desolated struggle for medical litigation,” “distrust of medical litigation related legal profession,” “accepting myself with a disability caused by a medical accident,” “a life with far more unexpected challenges as an athlete with disabilities,” and “find new meaning after the medical accident.” The participant was experiencing physical and psychological distress in the process of accepting the medical accident and the disability. In addition, the participant was exposed to the secondary psychological distress from the medical profession, lawyer, and legal profession in the peculiar situation of medical litigation, and to the third psychological distress in life living as a disabled person.

KEYWORDS:

• Victim of medical accident
• patient safety
• disclosure of patient safety incidents
• case study
• medical litigation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2018R1C1B6005186).

Notes on contributors

Jeehee Pyo

Jeehee Pyo is a researcher with a master's degree in counseling and is interested in qualitative study and victims of medical accidents.

Minsu Ock

Minsu Ock is a assistant professor at University of Ulsan College of Medicine and is interested in qualitative study, victims of medical accidents, and healthy life expectancy.

Young-Joo Han

Young-Joo Han is a associate Professor at Korea Counseling Graduate University and is interested in qualitative study.