Duty
The term duty asks whether the defendant owed this person a professional obligation. (DA)
Doctor-Patient relationship
An element of malpractice that addresses whether a provider failed to meet applicable standard of care. (YL)
What is breach?
The requirement that the healthcare professional’s breach of the standard of care was a substantial factor in causing the patient’s injury or harm. (MB)
What is causation?
These are damages related to medical bills, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, and other costs (CC).
What are economic (or special) damages?
This is the maximum contingency percentage a medical malpractice attorney can charge for a case in the State of Nevada (CC)
What is 35%
A physician who voluntarily begins treating an unconscious patient cannot simply abandon the patient without taking reasonable steps to ensure continued care. What legal concept governs this obligation? (IL)
What is the duty to continue care?
To prove a breach, the plaintiff must establish this legally binding standard, defined as what a reasonably competent physician in the same specialty would do under similar circumstances. (SA)
What is the medical standard of care?
A doctor fails to diagnose appendicitis. The patient's appendix later ruptures, causing severe infection. The patient argues that the doctor's failure led to the complication. What must the patient prove to establish this element? (IL)
What is that the doctor's negligence caused the injury?
The Nevada cap of non-economic damages - ZP
$590,000
Often targeted by tort reform laws, these legal limits place a maximum dollar amount on the non-economic damages a plaintiff can be awarded in a lawsuit. (DA)
What are damage caps (or statutory caps)?
This is the definitive moment a doctor-patient relationship is established, according to AMA Journal of Ethics (CC)
What is the act of examination, diagnosis, treatment, or the agreement to performed any of the aforementioned actions?
A physician selects an accepted antibiotic for pneumonia, but the patient worsens and is hospitalized. Because the treatment was still within accepted medical practice, this principle may protect the physician from a finding of breach. (SA)
What is reasonable clinical judgement?
In medical malpractice defense, lawyers often defeat the element of causation by proving the patient's decline was actually due to one of these health issues present prior to any treatment. CF
What is a pre-existing condition?
Pain, suffering, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life fall into this category of damages. (MY)
What are noneconomic damages?
A patient believes a physician's negligence caused an injury but waits until after the legally prescribed filing period has expired to bring the lawsuit. Even if the underlying claim might otherwise have merit, this legal issue could prevent the case from proceeding. (MB)
What is the statute of limitations?
In Reynolds v. Decatur Memorial Hospital, an appellate court found an informal telephone consult created no duty of care, noting that this specific formal administrative step placed later by the pediatrician was never received by the neurosurgeon. (AP)
What is a consultation order?
When defining the standard of care to determine whether a breach occurred, this specific geographic rule (which is still retained in North Carolina) evaluates a clinician's care by comparing it only to practitioners in comparable areas rather than across the nation. (AP)
What is the similar-community standard?
To legally prove causation in almost all medical malpractice cases, this specific type of witness is required to explain how the breach physically led to the injury. MV
What is a medical expert witness?
Under Nevada's medical malpractice statutes, defendants are liable for economic and non-economic damages under this specific doctrine—meaning only for their individual percentage of fault, rather than jointly for the whole amount. CF
What is several liability (or several only liability)?
Before any major surgery, a doctor must legally explain the risks and benefits of the procedure, and the patient must sign a form. This standard process is known as getting the patient's "what" - ZP
3 y/o patient presenting for foreign object in nose, evaluated by emergency physician and instructed to call ENT in the morning. Patient develops nasal discharge and extensive necrosis. Family seeks charges for delay of care against the ENT. The ENT is arguing this element of malpractice by claiming there was no physician-patient relationship. (YL)
What is Duty
A patient suffers a serious complication after treatment. In evaluating whether the physician breached the standard of care, the jury must avoid this cognitive error, where they might judge the physician's decision using information about the patient's condition that became known only after the treatment. (MB)
What is hindsight bias?
If a doctor forgets to order a routine scan for a tumor, allowing a highly curable cancer to spread aggressively, the delay is blamed for causing this worse medical outcome. MV
What is the progression of the disease?
The legal principle requiring an injured plaintiff to take reasonable steps to avoid unnecessarily increasing their losses is known as this. (MY)
What is mitigation of damages?
This medical specialty has the highest rate of medical malpractice - ZP
Neurosurgery