Erschienen in:
01.11.2013 | Medicolegal Sidebar
The Judgment Defense in Medical Malpractice
verfasst von:
B. Sonny Bal, MD, JD, MBA, Lawrence H. Brenner, JD
Erschienen in:
Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research®
|
Ausgabe 11/2013
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Excerpt
In medical malpractice litigation, one well-recognized defense is that the physician or surgeon was simply using his or her best judgment, such that an adverse outcome was simply a matter of probability. In fact, the shielding of physicians and surgeons from legal liability under circumstances where it is clear that prudent professional judgment was exercised is a time-honored principle of American jurisprudence. To wit, in 1898, the court in the legal case of
Pike v Honsinger set forth the principle that a physician or surgeon would not be “… liable for a mere error of judgment, provided he does what he thinks is best after careful examination” [
1]. The
Pike case dealt with a poor outcome from closed treatment of a patella fracture. …