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"The patient's family members have filed a complaint against you." This is probably the last thing that a doctor would like to hear other than "doctor, patient's peripheral IV cannula has dislodged" or "lab called and said the blood samples have clotted" after working tirelessly every day in the hospital caring for patients in wards.

Medical malpractice happens when a health care professional cause an injury to a patient through medical negligence. The mentioned negligence can come in various forms, be it a result of error in diagnosis, treatment, or health management.

Here was my first encounter with a medical complaint. I was working in the ward as usual, minding my own business with the never ending job list that I have to do after finished doing ward round with specialists.

Then there was this patient on an acute bay named Ashton who was an elderly gentleman admitted for respiratory disease and prior to admission to the ward he had actually collapsed twice and intubated in the emergency department. Hence his prognosis was not already the best when he was sent up to the ward.

My superior and I both broke the bad news to the family members about Ashton's condition and they were devastated when they heard about it. After calming down the patient's family members I proceeded with my other tasks and a moment later the family member mentioned that there were no oxygen mentioned on the ventilator.

With a rather concerned look, I checked on Ashton and made sure he was stable before calling the anaesthetist to come over and have a look at the ventilator machine. Within an hour or so the anaesthetist came and checked the machine and mentioned that the machine was well functioning well. Then we explained to the patient that all was well and there was nothing to be worried about the ventilator machine.

Little did I know, the family member actually went to lodge a complain against us for being negligent and attended the patient late. The sister of the ward was kind of nervous when she told me about it. I was anxious at the same time to be honest after receiving the news as it was the first complaint that I have ever experienced after being a doctor for several months.

In tandem, I was equally confused as I have already clarified with them about the issue. Armed with somewhat limited knowledge and experience in communication skills that I have gathered in medical school, I approached the family members and explained to them again regarding their concerns and made sure that they fully understood the whole situation.Thank god the family members were understanding enough and no further actions were taken.

Nonetheless, not all complaints will end up in the same manner. In some cases, they might turn into lawsuits. Irregardless of specialty, fellow doctors will more often face lawsuit at some point of their careers. The main thing is to know what to do and what not to do when facing these malpractice lawsuits in order to ensure things go your way when you are in the courts.

Having said that, some of the most important things that we as junior doctors can do is to do proper documentations on things that we have done for the patients. As trivial as it sounds, these documentations will help you at the end of the day as they would be used in the courts to justify things that you have or have not done for the patients. Till then, cheers.