A successful medical malpractice lawsuit requires the plaintiff to prove that the doctor or hospital’s conduct did not comply with the standard of care recognized in the medical community and that the failure to comply with the accepted standard of care caused the injury alleged.
But what if a standard medical practice itself falls below acceptable medical conduct as defined by long accepted science? That is a question we see when asking whether a hospital acquired infection is the result of medical malpractice or is just the price we pay for doctors and nurses who refuse or fail to simply wash their hands, change IV catheters properly, or otherwise engage in conduct that is deleterious to their patients but may save the doctors some time.
When I was medical school and training in the mid-1980′s, we were constantly instructed to wash our hands between each patient contact. Twenty-five years later, the director of the Federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported that hospital infection rates have been reduced because of attention to basic standards of care, including hand hygiene, disinfection of patients, sterile handling of equipment and proper use of antibiotics. But there is still a medical culture at hospitals which neglects attention to basic cleanliness and infection control measures such as hand washing.
As of 2002, the Centers for Disease Control reported that at least 1.7 million hospital patients acquire a hospital infection each year. That number has to be gross understatement because such reports are gathered, for the most, from voluntary reporting systems or state mandated reporting for the most severe infections. You can read more about that here: www.hospitalinfection.org
So what does this have to do with malpractice lawsuits? If you allege that you acquired an infection in the hospital that resulted in terrible consequences to you we must prove your case in court. To do so requires proof that the doctor’s failure to wash his hands or to comply with known protocols for sterility was a departure from accepted standards of medical care. Well, guess what? The accepted standard of care for hand washing is that it is not always performed. The defense to such a suit is that the “standard of care” is different from what is perfect care. In essence, even though we know that sloppy care (the doctor not washing his hands between every patient contact) is causing this problem, everyone forgets from time to time and we accept that. In other words, the doctor comes to court and says he tries to wash his hands every time but sometimes he forgets and that is the standard, so his behavior has not departed from the standard of care. And remember, if the doctor did not depart from the standard of care, then your case does not even get off the ground because there cannot be malpractice without a departure from the “accepted standard of care.”
www.ReibmanWeiner.com
www.BronxMedicalMalpracticeLawyersFirm.com
www.BrooklynMedicalMalpracticeLawyersFirm.com
