A Review of Reasons of Malpractice of Obstetricians, Gynecologists and Midwives

Medical malpractice means taking measures that do not comply with the accepted standards of medical practice and therefore may lead to death or permanent disabilities and evaluating its reasons can preventits occurrence or reduce it. Our previous study revealed that most malpractices relate to gynecologists and occur at night shift. Since other factors play a role in malpractice, the aim of this study was to evaluate the role of other factors in occurrence of malpractice.
This study is a retrospective cross-sectional one performed in 2013. The observed cases were all patients’ claims against obstetrics and gynecology and midwifery stuff of hospitals, clinics and health centers (2006-2012) in Ahwaz. The data were collected by checklist and analyzed by SPSS software version 21.
Findings: The results revealed that, most malpractices included mistakes in treatment decision (in university hospitals), neonate’s death, human mistakes, and non-emergency cases, which have occurred in Ob &Gyn wards.
Sincethe majority of malpractice cases were due to human mistakes (mistakes in treatment decision) and resulted in neonates death, it seem necessary to pay more attention to staff’s problems, including professional ones, work overload, etc. Additionally, due to the fact that most cases of malpracticehave occurred in university hospitals and in obstetrics and gynecology wards, special attention to governmental health centers seems necessary, in order to obviate the reasons for malpractice.