4 Elements to Use Against Medical Negligence in Court

First of all, what is negligence? In simplest sense, for a professional, it is the inability to show reasonable care while handling work, resulting in damage to his service buyer. It is considered a civil wrong and thus, goes by the title of tort of negligence.

Law strictly expects healthcare professionals to abide by legal standard of care deemed necessary and sometimes common sense.


The main definition is given below. Standard of care is their way of preventing malpractice while protecting the patients.

Most rules found within standard of care may vary from state to state. However, there are still those that are common in the entire nation. By law, one can sue healthcare providers for negligence. But in order to win in the court, they must show evidence of the following:

1. Duty: Healthcare providers directly involved in treating the patient are required by law to perform it carefully. Absence of meeting is not an excuse here. What this means is that even if the patient never meets the pathologist who is working on his blood samples he owes duty to him. He must try his best to be as correct as possible. Owing of duty, however, does not end here. When the healthcare provider is seeing a pregnant patient he owes duty to her fetus too, making it important for him to make sure that nothing happens to it during a treatment. Another in the line is the bystander. Now this can be the patient's family member or relative who witnesses a case of medical negligence and gets psychologically or physically affected by it or sees the treatment cause damage to the patient. Lastly, healthcare providers owe duty to anyone who gets into their office and hospital. They do not have the right to put the average visitor's life in danger. Now if a case of negligence goes in the court jury is not going to sit and brainstorm the ways the doctor could have avoided causing the damage. Instead they will look into the  standard of care.
Standard of Care definition
2. Breach of duty: This is connected to not abiding by the legal standard of care. This is where the provider is doing his action of negligence. However, when it comes to proving it  in the court, technical knowledge about it becomes necessary. The plaintiff, thus, is required to be accompanied by an expert who can show on his behalf how the provider violated standard of care. If one is not presented defendants get the chance to win. They also bring in their own expert. In the end, it becomes the battle of experts. However, in cases where the connection between the defendant and damage is overly obvious, no expert is necessary. The legal term used for it is res ipsa loquitur. An extreme example of this would be leaving scalpel inside the stomach of the patient during surgery.

3. Causation: Here the plaintiff has to prove how the breach of duty led to damage he is bearing. The court may not find the defendant guilty only if the damage or death was apparently predicted and imparted to the plaintiff.

4. Damage: This one involves showing the evidence of the damage. Now this is not limited to physical injury caused by the breach of duty. In fact it can be anything ranging from employment loss to medical treatment expenses that the plaintiff is bearing because of what the provider did to him.

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