If a Doctor makes a mistake, and that results in a complication, is that Medical Negligence?

If a Doctor makes a mistake, and that results in a complication, is that Medical Negligence?

That seems pretty obvious and logical to a lot of people. But consider this:

[1] Take the simplest of tasks and ask any person to do it repeatedly. The person will make mistakes at the beginning, which will decrease with time, but can never reach a state where there is no possibility of any error.

[2] You make that task a complicated one, which is variable each time, and the errors are bound to increase.

[3] You increase the pressure on the person performing the task, and tell him/her that if they get it wrong, then there are going to be dire consequences. And that’s going to increase the errors further.

[4] That’s what Doctors and Healthcare professionals go through EVERYDAY.

[5] To err is human and doctors are humans too. Sachin Tendulkar may be the greatest batsman ever and the best at his craft, but even he is bound to make mistakes. You take cricketers who have trained for it their entire lives, are the best 11 individuals at it among 1 billion people, and even they make mistakes. It is easy for us to judge their mistakes while we are sitting at home watching a match , but errors are bound to happen. If cricketers were sued for everytime they make a mistake, almost no one would play cricket.

[6] So not all mistakes count as negligence.

[7] ONLY if it falls below the standard of care, would it be regarded as negligence.

[8] What is standard of care?
While that may be a little subjective, it is basically determined based on standard practices. In other words, would the actions be similar to what a doctors with reasonable competence would have done.

[9] Consider an example. An individual has an aneurysm( abnormal ballooning of a blood vessel) in the brain. The neurosurgeon has to clip the blood vessel without rupturing the aneurysm. It’s a task which requires extensive training, concentration and precision. A matter of millimetres can be the difference between life and death for the patient. Unfortunately, during the surgery, the aneurysm does get ruptured.

[10] Is it unfortunate? Yes.
Is it Medical Negligence. NO.
Because that can happen to any neurosurgeon.

#doctors #indiandoctors #medicalnegligence #medicolegal #medlegal #medicallaw