A tort is an act that injures someone in some way, and for which the injured person may sue the wrongdoer for damages. Legally, torts are called civil wrongs, as opposed to criminal ones.
(Some acts like battery, however, may be both torts and crimes; the wrongdoer may face both civil and criminal penalties.) (The Lectric Law Library)
DEGREES OF NEGLIGENCE
Ordinary Negligence
Ordinary negligence is a failure to do what a “reasonably prudent person” would or would not do, under the circumstances of the act or omission in question. (Pozgar, 2007) An example of ordinary negligence within the healthcare section would be malpractice cases.
Gross Negligence
Gross negligence is a more serious form of negligence that goes a step further than simple carelessness. While regular negligence is seen as a person or company falling below an expected standard of care, gross negligence is seen as a complete failure to show care that in fact implies recklessness or a willful disregard for safety and human life. (Brent Adams & Associates) Examples include a surgeon amputating the wrong limb or leaving a surgical instrument inside a body cavity of the patient.
ELEMENTS OF NEGLIGENCE
Duty Owed
While there are different levels of duty and situations where a person does not have a duty to another, usually the health care provider has a duty to his patient. All professional health care providers who have a relationship with a patient have a duty to that patient. The patient/health provider relationship is often established when the doctor, nurse, etc. begins treating the patient. This is usually the easiest element to satisfy in a medical malpractice case. The health care provider has a duty to use established standards of care when treating a patient. A health care provider is held to a standard of other providers with similar education and in a similar situation.
Breach of Duty
A health care provider breaches his duty to his patient when he does not act according to standards for his profession. For example, an emergency room doctor may be held to a different standard than a pediatrician who does not have experience treating gunshot wounds or fatal trauma. When a health care provider ignores symptoms he should have recognized, or when a nurse accidentally administers a lethal dose of medication, the standard of care is breached. A doctor is expected to have knowledge that an average person would not have and the doctor is expected to act accordingly.
Causation
The breach of duty, or the act which was not up the standards of care, must be the cause of the resulting injury in order to bring a medical malpractice suit. It is often difficult to detemine what causes an injury or what caused something to go wrong during medical treatment. So many things can go wrong through no one’s fault. It is possible for someone to have surgery and have horrible complications afterward, even though every health care provider did everything according to the standards of medical care.
Damages or Injury
While all of the previous elements might be met in a case, all four elements are necessary to bring a claim for medical malpractice. Damages are not the same as injuries. It is possible for a health care provider to make a mistake while treating a patient resulting in an injury, but if there are no damages, there is no claim. A person may be injured slightly, or may not be any worse off due to the injury because the patient had other injuries. An example of this would be a person with cancer who misses some chemotherapy and dies.
A person would have to prove the wrongful death would not have occurred if the patient had the chemotherapy. While some damages are easy to assess like lost wages or replacement services, some damages are not related to money. Damages can be pain and suffering, or can be a loss of the ability to do things a person could have done if not for the injury. Sometimes damages are difficult to determine without the help of an experienced medical malpractice attorney.
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