A patient is responsible for injuries resulting from which of the following?

• A. the natural progression of illness.
• B. hospital equipment malfunction.
• C. a failure to follow physician instructions.
• D. care provided by others.

Answer: (C)

The key idea is that patients have a duty to participate in their care, including following reasonable physician instructions. When a patient fails to follow those instructions and a injury or worsened outcome results, the patient can bear responsibility for those injuries.

If the injury is simply due to the natural progression of an illness, that progression isn’t caused by the patient’s actions and isn’t treated as patient-caused harm. If harm arises from hospital equipment malfunction, the liability typically falls on the hospital or manufacturer, not the patient. Likewise, injuries stemming from care provided by others are generally the responsibility of the healthcare team or facility, not the patient.

So the scenario where the patient is responsible is when the injury results from the patient’s failure to follow physician instructions.