ABA Family Legal Guide

Health-Care Law

Regulating Health-Care Professionals

Medical Malpractice

So if I get a bad outcome from my treatment, can I sue for malpractice?

It is not automatically malpractice when your doctor gives you medical care and something bad happens. As long as your doctor uses reasonable care and skill in treating you, your doctor did not commit malpractice. Five doctors can examine and diagnose the same person and come up with five different opinions as to what medical care is needed. That does not mean that four of the doctors are wrong or incompetent. It means that there are many ways to treat that person. The key is that all the doctors acted according to acceptable medical standards and treated you as any reasonable doctor would have treated you.

If your doctor is negligent but you are not injured as a result of it, there is no malpractice. For there to be malpractice, the doctor has to be reckless or negligent, and that recklessness or negligence has to cause your injury.