my question is about two kinds of ignorance in term of professional ethics

Question

. A physician was negligent in that he was ignorant of a particular fact. He administered anesthesia to a woman and overlooked her medical chart that showed she had eaten an hour before. As a result, the woman was permanently incapacitated(disabled). In this case, the physician did not know something he should have known, causing harm to his patient.

There are two different kinds of negligence. One stems from ignorance of fact and the other from ignorance of principle. According to you which one applies in above example Discuss   

Answer 1

Although, I would quibble about whether or not a principle is a fact, as the questions is written we are clearly talking about the ignorance of a fact. In this context "principle" refers to a generalized concept which can show up in more than one situation. Whereas, "fact" refers to a concrete piece of information particular to the situation. So if the physician did not know that people should not be given anesthesia shortly after eating, then that would be ignorance of principle. Because it is true for all people receiving anesthesia generally. But from the question, the ignorance is of the particularity that this individual patient had eaten at this particular hour. That makes it ignorance of fact.