In medical malpractice cases, you will often see it stated that the patient did not receive the “expected standard of care.” This was a duty of care owed to that patient by a medical professional – such as a nurse or a doctor – but that duty wasn’t upheld because the standard wasn’t met.
This often means that medical professionals have made a mistake or that they acted negligently. But how do you determine if they haven’t met the standard of care? How do you even define what the standard of care is?
The role of medical experts
This is why medical experts are often used in medical malpractice cases. The standard of care is not the same all the time. It just means “the degree of care a prudent and reasonable person would exercise under the circumstances.”
For instance, the patient would be reasonable and prudent to expect the doctor’s office to be clean and orderly. They would expect surgical tools to be sanitized and cleaned before use. If the hospital staff was negligent and didn’t do so, and then the patient contracted an infection during surgery, the staff has not met the standard of care that a reasonable person would’ve expected.
Another example could be if a doctor decides to use an experimental procedure without notifying the patient. The expected standard of care may have called for a different procedure. But the doctor made their own decision and – even if they were well-intentioned – that may mean they didn’t uphold the proper standard of care. The patient could’ve had a better outcome if the doctor hadn’t used the experimental surgery.
These are just a few examples, but they help to show why it’s so important to define the standard of care and to understand your legal options when it isn’t met.
