Patients who seek medical care expect that their doctor will help them with whatever condition they are dealing with. The standard of care is the expectation that’s set for these professionals, but that standard changes according to specific factors that are present in a case. Patients who haven’t received the care they feel they should have and have suffered damages because of it might have a claim for compensation.
The factors that go into the standard of care are based on the doctor’s training and what information is present when the diagnosis and care plans are developed. For this reason, specialists are expected to know more about conditions that fall in their field than general doctors or practitioners who specialize in other areas.
The more information a doctor has, the more targeted the diagnosis and treatment should be. You can’t reasonably expect that a doctor in a smaller rural clinic would have the same diagnostic tools and treatment options available as one who works for a large, state-of-the-art medical facility.
It is often difficult to determine what the standard of care is in these cases. When you opt to seek compensation for the breach of standard of care, you need to establish what it should have been. One way to do this is to have a medical expert testify as to what the standard of care would be in a specific case.
The issue with having a medical expert testify is that you have to find one who’s willing. The medical community is tightknit, so this can prove difficult to those who don’t already know some. Working with a medical malpractice lawyer might help you get the testimony you need to prove your case.
