Shades of Responsibility

I always thought the law was black and white; an action was either legal or illegal. This week in ISM, I continued my research into medical malpractice law. More specifically, I read, annotated, and analyzed the article, “An Introduction to Medical Malpractice in the United States” written by Bal Sonny.

One major part of the article that really surprised me was that if an attorney cannot prove all four elements of a malpractice claim, there is no case even if the doctor or practice acted negligently. For example, a doctor fails to properly communicate post-operative care instructions to their patient. However, the patient does their own research, preventing any harm. Since there were no injuries, there is no malpractice case even though the doctor had a duty to inform his patient about post-OP care. I thought this was particularly interesting because technically the doctor was still in the wrong. Another gray area of malpractice law underlies the fact that it varies across states. There is no federal law governing malpractice. I wonder if this creates any problems or if a case has - or ever will - reach the Supreme Court. Lastly, I learned that in order to prove there was a breach of duty, an attorney needs to prove that another reasonable doctor would have not acted the same way. My question is what defines “reasonable?” How can one decide if a doctor did everything they possibly could or was negligent?

In retrospect, there is no fine line when it comes to the law. A lot of cases can and do fall in multiple different shades of gray. Next week, I hope to perform more research in the gray shades of malpractice law and uncover more specifics about how to file a claim.