Medical malpractice determines standards doctors must follow when caring for their patients. Like other professionals, doctors must perform their jobs to a certain standard of care. Unlike other professionals, when doctors make mistakes or do not perform to standards, the outcomes can ruin their patients’ lives. Patients who were injured by their doctor’s mistakes can sue the doctor to pay for the extra medical costs and lost wages.
Medical malpractice is considered a part of personal injury law. Many accident and injuries cases, including medical malpractice cases, claim that one party was “negligent” in their practices, which caused an injury or damage. For medical malpractice cases, this means that the patient has to prove the doctors have a duty to practice medicine a certain way, that the doctor breached their duty, and that the breach of duty caused the patient’s harm.