Bad Outcome

The legal formula for medical malpractice is that the defendant doctor’s care has to be below the minimal standard of acceptable care in that circumstances. Plainly defined, that means that the care has to be unreasonable under those circumstances. Frequently, medical treatment even done in the best of circumstances results in a bad outcome and the fact that there is a bad outcome that results from medical treatment doesn’t necessarily give rise to medical malpractice. In fact, because practicing medicine is thought to be an art, there can be different ways of trying to treat the same condition and if number of doctors who try one approach and the number of doctors who try another approach and the patient’s doctor does one of those two and there is a bad outcome, that too isn't medical malpractice. There are two schools of thought about appropriate treatment, either one may be reasonable. So, just a fact that someone has suffered an injury doesn’t mean that they have a medical malpractice claim. Medical malpractice claim arises when a doctor fails to exercise reasonable care, fails to meet the minimum standard of acceptable care in those circumstances. So, if a patient come in with complaints with the history that they had fallen and landed on their hand and tells the doctor that there is a sharp pain in the wrist and the doctors says, well you probably have a bruise and sends the patients home. The failure to do an x-ray, to use a technique that is available that is well known may be malpractice, may be unreasonable under those circumstances. That’s an example of medical malpractice.