People often ask about the key elements that are necessary to establish in proceeding with a medical malpractice claim and there’s really two elements to keep in mind. Liability or negligence is the first and often that’s referred to as the standard of care. Did the doctor or hospital or the nurse meet the standard of care that’s expected of that doctor given his or her expertise. There are different standards for different doctors; those who hold themselves out as specialists are held to a higher standard than those who are general practitioners. Nurses, hospitals, everybody has a certain level of care that’s expected of them and required. The first step is to determine, did they meet those standards?
The second step is, even if it’s found that the doctor or the nurse at the hospital didn’t live up to those standards, what did that breach of the standard cause. In other words, often the defense will argue that even if they didn’t do things right the same result would have occurred anyway. So it’s up to us to prove that that’s not the case, that the breach of standard of care or the negligence caused real loss and real damage. Those are proved by getting the experts to weigh in and review the records and provide us with an opinion so that we can go up against the insurers for the doctors and hospitals and advance your claim.
Give us a call at SBMB Law at 905-884-9242 and we’ll help or email Ron Bohm, Senior Litigation Partner with SBMB Law, at rbohm@sbmblaw.com.