Health Care

Juan is a promising basketball player that shows exceptional skills. He is offered a scholarship to play
Division I ball at State University. He is very excited for the opportunity, as he sees this as his ticket to fame
and fortune. Sometimes when he plays ball he has a hard time catching his breath and has chest pain, but
he attributes that to late night parties. He resolves to get more sleep and party less with his friends. Juan
doesn’t mention this to anyone and has managed to pass the medical tests required for all athletes to play
at State. The team plays very well and by January they are expected to win their conference and qualify for
March Madness. After a monster triple double game Juan tells his coach that he had times on the court
where he cannot catch his breath and feels dizzy. The coach tells him initially to rehydrate and get a good
night’s sleep. The next day at practice Juan feels better but asks to see the team doctor, assuming that the
coach spoke to him but he hadn’t. The team doctor is employed by the university and the associated
hospital, The coach sees the doctor with Juan and at that point he tells the doc to “do the works to make
sure Juan is good to go to play tomorrow.” This was overheard by Juan’s girlfriend Laura. The doctor does
a quick examination on Juan. He notices that Juan’s heartbeat is erratic and draws some blood for some
tests. Although he asked for the tests to be completed as soon as possible he doesn’t follow up with State’s
hospital center, which is adjacent to campus. He doesn’t do any other tests. He hospital lab subsequently
misfiles the blood as a standard order and does not complete the tests for two days. The day after meeting
with the doctor Juan’s extended family drives up to watch him play. During warmups for the game, Juan
suffers a cardiovascular event and collapses on the court. Juan’s mother sees it happen and also requires
emergency medical attentionections: In this assignment you will use the outline you created previously as a basis to write a 5 – 7
page paper per APA citation guidelines.
The paper should be structured as follows:
I. INTRODUCTION paragraph. Use this to introduce your paper. Your introduction for this assignment must
include, at a minimum:
A. Summary of the main facts of the case.
B. Identification all the potential legal issues (i.e. cause of actions) in the fact pattern,
C. Thesis sentence on the focus of the paper.
II. BODY of the paper.
A. The outline and the paper will address the three main legal issues:
1. What is the responsibility of medical doctors in screening student athletes? You are required to use the
article identified in the PDF attached (called “A Legal Perspective on Athlete Screening and Qualification”)
as a reference to address this question. You may also use other sources.
2. What duty does a doctor owe a patient? I.E. What is negligence? List and define the four elements. Use
the library to identify a peer reviewed article that helps you answer this question.
3. Is the hospital (employer of the doctor) liable? Use the library to identify a peer reviewed article that
helps you address if a hospital is liable when a medical worker is negligent.
B. What defenses are available to the doctor and the hospital? I.E., what can they argue to defend
themselves?
C. As a member of the hospital administrative team, what three concrete changes can you recommend to
processes and procedures to prevent something like this from happening again? This may include doctor
training, oversight review, etc.
III. CLOSING paragraph. Use this section to summarize and tie up your paper.