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What do I need to prove to be successful in a medical malpractice case?
SAC: Well, to prevail in a medical malpractice case, against a physician, the plaintiff or
patient must prove four distinct elements. Duty, a breech of a duty, proximate cause
and damages. And if any of those essential elements is missing, the plaintiff will not
prevail. And it’s the plaintiff who has the burden of proof in these cases. I can
address each one of the elements separately. D
Duty actually refers to the legal relationship between the plaintiff and defendant. In a
medical malpractice case, the duty requires that the healthcare provider delivers healthcare
in accordance with the standard of care. So a relationship must exist before the duty
arises, thus in a medical negligence situation, a doctor/patient relationship must be established
before this duty arises. Once there is that physician/patient relationship, the defendant
doctor becomes legally accountable for his or her actions. Now, you may ask what is the
level of conduct to which a healthcare provider is held or what is the standard of care? The
standard of care is very…you can’t to go a book and find the standard of care. A
doctor is required to possess and apply the knowledge and use the skill and care ordinarily
used by a reasonably well-qualified physician in the same or similar circumstances. It’s
a standard or reasonableness. And a plaintiff or patient must introduce evidence at trial
to demonstrate the standard of care. And how do you introduce this evidence? This is where
that expert witness comes in. You need to hire an expert witness to review the case
and then that witness must come in at trial and testify as to the standard of care and
that it has been breeched. The expert must have qualifications and expertise very similar
to that defendant doctor. The expert testifies about the standard of care a trial and they
also testify that the defendant’s conduct fell below that standard of care. Now, you
can establish standard of care not only with an expert witness but you can look to other
sources as to what is reasonable conduct by a physician. Sometimes documents are used
to help define the standard of care. For example there might be practice bulletins or guidelines
that are published by professional medical organizations that may help define the standard
of care. In a case against a hospital you can look the hospital’s policies and procedures.
or articles as to what is reasonable conduct for a doctor in a given situation. And sometimes,
John, there are statutes that actually define the standard of care. For example in Illinois,
physicians versus midwives, have a duty after a baby is born to instill eye drops in the
eye to prevent a certain eye disease. So that is a practice or standard that is dictated
by law. So you can try and define standard of care in all of these different ways but
been a breech in that duty. And a breech of that duty can either be an act or an omission.
And it must be a foreseeable breech. Expert testimony, policies and procedures and all
of the other things that we discussed can show a breech in the standard of care.
Another important element is proximate cause or causation. There must be a direct relationship
between an alleged negligence and the plaintiff’s injuries. To you the words of the law, as
a direct and proximate result of the acts or omissions of the defendant, the plaintiff
must have sustained an injury. No defendant will be found liable for injuries to the plaintiff
simply because the defendant performed negligently. There has to be that causal connection.
Causation is also proved by expert testimony and this may be a difficult element for a
plaintiff to prove in a medical negligence case because there may be other explanations
for the patient’s injury. Many times in these cases, proximate cause if the big defense.
case is defended. And the final element is damages. The plaintiff
must prove that they have sustained an injury or damage. And in Illinois damages fall into
to basic categories. The first category is economic damage and the second is non-economic
damage. And some of the elements that a plaintiff may be compensated for include past and future
medical care costs, lost earnings, past and future pain and suffering, past and future
disability, disfigurement. So an example of an economic damage would be lost wages or
past medical bills. And example of a non-economic damage would be pain and suffering. One distinction
in Illinois that is kind of unique to medical malpractice cases is that you cannot sue for
punitive damages. Often you hear in product liability cases where a manufacturer or company
can be sued for punitive damages. That is not an element that is recoverable in Illinois.