You made my heart stop

摘要

Okay, you are employed as an associate in any type of group practice you want to envision. One day, you are covering the office because the owner/ orthodontist is away, and you hear a commotion in the reception area. When you go to see what's happening, you find that IVlr Eclair, the father of a patient in the office, is lying on the floor with his eyes open; he is breathing heavily, and has a pale face and a faint pulse. You immediately tell the front desk to call 911 and ask whether there is an emergency kit in the office and, if so, to bring it out; you also ask the others in the reception area whether anyone there has medical training. At that point, an assistant brings the office emergency kit and the automated external defibrillator (AED).As a licensed health care professional, you have been trained in CPR as well as in the use of an AED. One thing thatyou learned was thatyou don't begin CPR on someone like Mr Eclair because, from your understanding of all you have been taught, it is inappropriate for someone who is breathing and has a detectable pulse. It turns out that an adult patient in the treatment area is a retired physician, who is there with his granddaughter, a nursing student. While they attend to Mr Eclair, you go to check on the status of the ambulance. You decide not to get involved with Mr Eclair's emergency care because, again, in your judgment, the physician and the nursing student were in a better position to continue caring for him until paramedics arrived. When you return to the reception area, you note that the physician and the nursing student are performing CPR on Mr Eclair. At that time, the EMTs arrive and continue to perform CPR and attempt to shock Mr Eclair, but, unfortunately, he never revived. These are essentially the facts in Mi-glino v Bally Total Fitness of Greater N.Y., Inc., 20 NY3d 342, 2013. The question is, do you owe a duty of care to someone who is not a patient, and how far does that duty extend?