Article Sections

Introduction

Medical malpractice is characterized by a physician's failure to practice according to accepted standards of care, directly resulting in patient harm (eg, injury, death).  Malpractice claims are heard in civil court, where the patient (plaintiff) must provide evidence that, more likely than not (ie, by a preponderance of evidence), the physician behaved negligently.

Criteria

For a physician to be found liable for medical malpractice, all of the following criteria must be met ( Table 1):

  • Duty:  The physician must have an established relationship with the patient, which can be explicit (eg, outpatient consultation) or implicit (eg, informal consultations with a specialist ["curbside consult"], supervision of other providers).
  • Deviation from standard:  The physician must fail to practice according to accepted standards of care due either to lack of attention and care (ie, negligence, dereliction of duty) or to deficits in knowledge or skill.  Professional standard of care definitions are state dependent, although they are commonly described as what a reasonable and similarly qualified doctor would have done under the same or similar circumstances.

Continue Learning with UWorld

Get the full Medical Malpractice article plus rich visuals, real-world cases, and in-depth insights from medical experts, all available through the UWorld Medical Library.

Tables

Table 1
Table 2