http://www.issues2000.org/2004/John_Edwards_Health_Care.htmCampbell verdict empowered nurses & informed consent In the Campbell* case. Edwards won a $4 million judgment that hospitals were responsible for ensuring that nurses could override doctor's mistakes. The Campbell verdict set in motion a wave of reforms throughout the North Carolina medical community. Almost overnight, hospital board members ratified procedures through which personnel could go up a chain of command to protect a patient's welfare. Hospital nurses later reported to us that they were empowered by the reforms. Hospitals would be stronger now, and safer. On the legal front, Jennifer Campbell v. Pitt County Memorial Hospital made case law on the issue of informed consent: a hospital could now be held liable if it failed to ascertain whether a patient understood the various risks associated with a medical procedure. After the headlines stopped, I could take some satisfaction in the changes I saw happening. But in the end, this was always a case about one family, about a six-year-old girl and her parents, good working people. From John Edwards book, "Four Trials"
*It's a good time to familiarize ourselves with John Edwards' most relevant cases, and this might be the most important one of all. Jennifer Campbell suffered brain damage and developed cerebral palsy after a botched delivery. She was deprived of oxygen during her mother's labor; Edwards successfully argued that the hospital staff ignored signs that she was in danger in the womb. Her case against Pitt Memorial Hospital in 1985 was represented by John Edwards. The case set the precedent for Informed Consent, which by now we're all quite familiar with.
Just a nice one to throw out there when they bring up the "ambulance chaser" smear. John Edwards' two most influential cases were in the representation of
children who had suffered grievous injuries.
I realize this is a rather pedestrian analysis of the Campbell case, but being a
pedestrian, I thought it worthy of discussion.
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