In the Discussion Section, tell me what you would do if you were the in-house legal counsel for a local non-profit hospital, and one of your nervous gastroenterology doctors comes in and tells you this story: About six months ago, the department purchased a new colonoscopy device. That device has been used to perform approximately 300 colonoscopies during the past six months. But it has just been discovered that the cleaning and sterilizing process that is used on the device between each colonoscopy has not been completed properly.

There is a tiny hole at the end of the device, into which can be screwed tools. That hole is supposed to be cleaned out with a pipe cleaner before each sterilization. But this has not been done. So far, no patient who was scoped has reported any infections or adverse side effects. But... should the hospital notify all of the three- hundred patients who have already been scoped that they might have been exposed to infection? Should we notify them now? Or should we wait and see what happens?