Medical Malpractice

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on medical malpractice, which refers to a medical professional's negligence in treating or diagnosing a patient. Patients suing for medical malpractice must prove that the physician's breach of duty was the proximate cause of, or a substantial factor in bringing about the harm suffered by the patient. The proximate cause of an event is that act or omission which, in natural and continuing sequence, unbroken by an efficient intervening cause, produces the event, and without which, that event would not have occurred. Thus the physicians may face liability for giving unending prescriptions of addictive medications to addicted patients or to patients with a known history of addiction. The doctrine of informed consent requires physicians to reveal to patients the nature of the ailment, the nature of the proposed treatment, the probability of success of the contemplated therapy and its alternatives, and the risk of unfortunate consequences associated with such treatment. A patient alleging that his or her physician failed to disclose a risk of treatment has to prove that there was a material risk unknown to the patient, that the physician failed to disclose that risk, and that disclosure of the risk would have led a reasonable person in the patient's position to reject the treatment. Expert testimony on whether a physician obtained the patient's informed consent to treatment with narcotics is relevant and admissible in addiction cases, sometimes even if the expert witness does not share the same area of specialization as the defendant physician.