Medical Malpractice and the Medical Standard of Care

The term “medical malpractice” often summons up notions of incompetent medical professionals and haphazard care or treatment. And while it’s true that medical mistakes often give way to medical malpractice claims, not all mistakes in the treatment of patients rise to the level of incompetence or negligence that is characterized by medical malpractice in the legal sense.

The fact is the outcome of a patient treatment does not determine the level of care. Should a patient be treated for a condition for which little is known in the medical community at the time, the outcome may in fact be grim. However, that does not mean that the treatment the patient received was inadequate when judged by the medical standard of care. The medical standard of care is essentially the level of treatment and the measures a physician of the same specialty and education and skill level would have taken under the same circumstances. So if the patient received the same level of treatment another competent medical professional of the same specialty, education and experience would have provided under the same set of circumstances and still achieves a negative outcome, it is likely no court will find them liable for medical malpractice.

Establishing the medical standard of care for a given treatment s key to establishing whether or not a patient’s care (or lack thereof) rises to the level of medical malpractice. An experienced medical malpractice attorney will do that with the aid of expert testimony, typically from a medical professional with a high degree of expertise in the same specialty of the physician whose work is the subject of the medical malpractice claim. That expert will testify as to the steps, procedures and the care that they would have provided under the same circumstances as those of the plaintiff.

It’s important to realize that mistakes in the medical field do happen. Under certain conditions, like emergency rooms, some mistakes are common. Again, that does not mean that those mistakes give rise to a medical malpractice claim. If they are the kind of mistakes that are common under the circumstances the plaintiff experienced when they received the treatment in question, it is likely that plaintiff will have a difficult time proving medical malpractice.

It’s also important to understand that several elements must be established before medical malpractice can be proven. They are:

· That the patient was indeed under the medical professional’s care

· That the physician was negligent or incompetent (that the care they provided did not met the medical standard of care under the circumstances the patient experienced)

· That the care the patient received is responsible for the patient’s injuries

If you have questions about filing a medical malpractice claim and want to know if the treatment you received met the medical standard of care for your case, call the lawyers of

Bizzieri Law Offices in Chicago. Our attorneys have a wealth of experience working to prove medical malpractice cases for our clients.

We work with some of the most respected medical professionals in the industry and ensure that we work to recover all of the damages to which our clients are entitled. Call us at 773.881.9000 and speak with one of our experienced personal injury attorneys.