Medico-legal aspects in the expertise of anesthesia related death

Abstract

A 32-years-old healthy woman in a small town hospital dies during the delivery of her second child. Delivery has been with elective cesarean and death occurred in the phase of preanesthesia. The autopsy showed clear signs of endotracheal intubation. A question arose: Are there indications for physician negligence and how big is their responsibility for this tragic death. In this paper, through the presentation of this particular case, we also made a review of the literature discussing anesthesia related death. The aim and discussion of this paper are directed towards the medico legal aspects of anesthesia related death. The main question is, when the death is result of an error as an element of medical malpractice and when it is result of complications and circumstances that could not have been avoided. This presentation and review emphasizes the most important medico-legal aspects of anesthesia related death, particularly death in an obstetric patient showing the complexity and comprehensiveness of this kind of forensic medicine expertise.