Causation

A medical professional may have been negligent in providing care to a patient, it’s not always possible to link that negligence to an injury. Because the law requires a connection between fault and injury, not all instances of medical malpractice allow for an award of damages. It is usually very difficult to determine causation in medical malpractice cases and reaching a verdict may require the assistance of expert witnesses.

Expert witnesses are usually required in medical malpractice cases to establish the standard of medical care in the geographical area or in the area of medical specialty at issue. Unless the cause is obvious to a layperson, such as where a wrong arm is amputated or similar error, expert testimony is required to establish that the malpractice caused the patient’s injuries.

In many cases, the cause of injury is less clear, and can be spread among many health care providers. For example, a patient may be treated by a number of doctors, nurses, and medical technicians in the course of a hospital stay. Determining when the negligence occurred and who was responsible for the patient’s injuries can be a very daunting task.

The first doctor may have incorrectly diagnosed a patient, but a subsequent doctor may have been negligent in failing to correct the diagnosis. A subsequent series of mishaps in the operating room, each by a different technician, may require naming each technician as a defendant because each mishap contributed to the injury. Additional injury may have been caused by the use of a defective medical device or drug, or the negligence of an operating room doctor. In such cases, experts are needed to determine the cause of injury in light of the unfortunate sequence of events.