Medical Malpractice Lawyers: What is a breach of the standard of care?

Monetary compensation for medical malpractice can be won if the patient (plaintiff) is able to prove four legal elements:

• a professional agreement existed between the injured and the practitioner giving treatment;

• the physician violated a standard of care by his negligence;

• the breach led to injury; and

• the plaintiff suffered monetary and punitive damage (such as trauma, inconvenience, etc.) owing to the injury.
  

If you are considering filing a medical malpractice claim, it will bode well to understand a few important points before we explain the term “breach of standard of care.”

• Medical malpractice claims are settled in state courts except if the violation occurred in a federally-owned medical facility

• Standard of care varies from state to state

• Medical malpractice claims must be filed within a prescribed time frame, determined by the state. Also known as the statute of limitations

• Medical malpractice includes any act of omission or negligence on the part of the physician, or gross misconduct towards the plaintiff. Hence, cases involving a physician’s sexual misconduct also fall within this category.

• U.S. legal system encourages out-of-court settlement of such disputes between the two adversarial parties. In case that is not viable, the case appears before a jury who consult among themselves after examining documentation and expert testimonies to reach a verdict.

• In case a practitioner’s treatment didn’t abide with the standard of care but also didn’t result in any grievous harm to the plaintiff, the claim to award monetary compensation does not arise and such cases are dismissed.

• If the physician provided medical treatment in a non-hospital setting or voluntarily, such as on the roadside (perhaps to an accident victim or to a fellow passenger in a flight) or a social setup, and such treatment led to injury, there is no case of medical malpractice. This is because there exists no professional agreement between the injured and the physician.
  

Now let’s talk about what amounts to a breach of standard of care in medical terms.

What is standard of care and breach of standard of care?

While states may differ in their definition of what is an acceptable standard of care in medical malpractice cases, the commonly-accepted definition is “standard of care generally refers to that care which a reasonable, similarly situated professional would have provided to the patient.”

Standard of care is extremely subjective and depends on the following:

• It is the treatment that a “reasonable,” “common,” or “ordinary” practitioner would have provided in the same or similar circumstances; not what leading practitioners would have done. This is a grey area with practitioners pleading that there is more than one medically-acceptable approach for treating the plaintiff’s condition. If this happens, the onus to decide whether the treatment was right or not lies with the jury.

• A practitioner, who didn’t adhere to the procedures of the state or his hospital policies and protocol that are followed in similar situations, would be violating standard of care.

• If the practitioner didn’t avail the available medical facilities and equipment in the locality and this led to injury or aggravation of plaintiff’s condition, this can amount to a breach of standard of care.

• If the physician committed an egregious obvious error  that“speaks for itself,” a breach of standard of care is certainly present. For instance, leaving surgical equipment in the patient’s body or operating on the wrong limb, result in verdicts favorable for plaintiffs.

• Breach of standard of care is situation-specific. The same action by a physician might amount to breach in a particular circumstance or for a particular plaintiff but may be acceptable for another.

In the absence of consensus among experts to establish a universally accepted standard of care to be adhered by all physicians, the onus to prove that harm was done to a plaintiff lies with her attorney. Preparing a compelling medical malpractice case requires domain knowledge that comes from years of pertinent experience.

Even if a plaintiff is dissatisfied with the state court’s verdict or with her compensation amount, a skilled attorney  can help in overturning or revising the verdict by appealing to a higher court.

If you've been a victim of medical malpractice, you will require a team of seasoned lawyers by your side to bring the perpetrator to justice. The evidence and the reasoning to back your case should be airtight for you to have a chance to receive the right amount of compensation. Give us a call at 844-777-2529 to find out how we can help you out during these troubled times.