FRAMEWORK OF COMPREHENSIVE COMMUNICATION FOR AVOIDING DISPUTE BASED ON THE CONSIDERATION OF UNCERTAINTY IN MEDICAL ACTION

Abstract

Disputes in medical fields occur from malpractices in diagnoses, examinations and treatments. Not only patients but also doctors and nurses who are involved in the conflicts suffer from the trouble both physically and mentally. The purpose of this paper is to inquire the nature of uncertainty in medical actions and the way of understanding the characteristics of communicative actions for avoiding disputes in medicine. The first step is to inquire the features of medical action through analyzing a judicial precedent of medical malpractice in the fields of obstetrics and gynecology. It becomes clear, first, that a single medical action can be interpreted as performed by plural agents, second, that actions including communicative ones constitute a series of actions, and, third, that it is necessary to consider in advance both the situations before an action of treatment and the measures for meeting crises that might occur afterwards. The conclusion is that, for avoiding medical disputes, it is necessary to perform appropriate comprehensive communicative actions to lessen uncertainty and to take measures to cope with emergency.