What Constitutes Medical Malpractice in PA?

When someone causes you to sustain an accidental injury through their own misconduct, you can usually hold them civilly liable for damages your injury has caused you by proving them legally negligent. With some exceptions, this means proving they committed a specific reckless or careless act that is qualified as a breach of a duty of care they owed you.

Filing suit over an injury or illness you sustained due to professional misconduct by a healthcare provider typically also centers around the legal theory of negligence but with a notably different definition for what qualifies as legally actionable negligence. Understanding this definition is vital to understanding what constitutes medical malpractice in PA and, therefore, understanding when you might have legal standing to sue a Pennsylvania doctor over a personal injury.

What Is the Standard of Care for Pennsylvania Doctors?

A licensed physician who forms a doctor-patient relationship with someone they are treating has a duty to provide the best possible care to that patient, but it is not quite the same as a standard duty of care. Rather than what would be considered reasonable for any average person under the circumstances, doctors are expected to meet a specialized standard of care based on what an equally qualified and experienced physician would do under the circumstances.

This is an important distinction because it gives healthcare providers some legal leeway for minor mistakes and omissions that a non-professional who was irresponsible in a different scenario might not be given. For example, if a doctor working in a crowded emergency room misdiagnoses one of several successive patients they had to treat in a short window of time, that error might not be considered unreasonable for a qualified physician working under such stressful conditions to make, even if misdiagnosis directly led to the patient sustaining serious physical harm.

Proving that a Doctor Breached the Standard of Care

Because of how this standard of care is defined, a doctor simply making a mistake on the job does not automatically constitute medical malpractice in Pennsylvania, nor does testimony from another healthcare provider stating they would have handled a particular situation differently. To win this type of claim, an injured person must establish a specific standard of care for the specific circumstances under which they were injured, and then they must prove their injury stemmed directly from the defendant physician(s) acting contrary to that standard in a way no reasonable doctor would have.

Furthermore, they must have support from at least one “appropriate licensed professional” in the form of a written and signed “certificate of merit,” which is essentially a statement made under oath that the professional(s) in question believes the defendant provider’s actions likely fell outside the standards considered acceptable for a professional in their position. This is one of several unique procedural requirements that state law places on Pennsylvania malpractice claims, which a seasoned attorney could provide irreplaceable help with fulfilling.

Legal Counsel Can Provide Crucial Help with Establishing Medical Malpractice in PA

When you have further questions about whether your doctor’s actions constitute medical malpractice under Pennsylvania state law, an experienced lawyer from Lowenthal & Abrams can provide the answers and information you need.

Contact our firm today to schedule a confidential consultation. We would be happy to set one up at your convenience.