Medical Malpractice Standards Changing
As Orlando medical negligence lawyers, we must prove that our client’s received negligent or substandard medical care and suffered damages as a result. The standard of care which applies is a national one. Other states, however, continue to cling to the rule that the injured medical malpractice claimant must prove a violation of a local standard of care. That the defendant failed to do what others in the community would have done.
Throughout these states a movement is slowly building to abolish century-old medical malpractice laws that judge a doctor's performance by the medical standards existing in the physician's community. Those laws, known as "locality rules," are still on the books in 21 states. They were originally designed to protect rural doctors who lacked access to medicines and training available in big cities. But plaintiff lawyers, courts, medical professionals and a handful of legislators are calling for their demise, arguing that all present-day doctors -- regardless of where they live and practice -- have equal access to quality training and the latest medicines, and should therefore be held to the same standards.
Critics claim that locality rules unfairly dictate who gets to testify in medical malpractice cases. Plaintiffs lawyers dislike them because they mandate that only locals can be used as expert witnesses -- a tough feat in small towns where doctors are reluctant to testify against colleagues. Some judges have said the rules unfairly disqualify otherwise qualified medical experts.
Proponents of locality rules argue that they are still a necessity, particularly to insulate doctors in rural areas that have limited medical resources available. Locality rules take that into account and shield them from liability.
Locality rules vary from state to state. For example, Idaho and New York use the strictest rule, known as the "same community" standard, which bases the standard of care on what doctors in the same town are doing. Three states -- Arizona, Virginia and Washington -- use a statewide standard of care. Eleven states, including Michigan, Illinois and North Carolina, use a "same or similar community" standard, which allows for out-of-state doctors to testify in malpractice cases if they can show that their medical community standards are similar to the defendant's.
For the sake of health care consumers everywhere, these locality rules should be abolished. Medicine is no longer practiced in isolation. Doctors can stay current with their practice or specialty by simply going online. What’s more, for most cases, there is no reason why a patient in one state should be entitled to better care than one in a different state.
