What Determines Medical Malpractice in Arizona?

People need medical care for many different reasons, and since we were all young, we’ve all been taught to trust the opinions, recommendations and performances of medical professionals whose job is to take care of us and to protect us from further harm. While the majority of medical situations tend to reinforce this trust, the bottom line is that mistakes and problems can and do arise when obtaining medical care. When these situations take place, those who have been harmed should seek the immediate help of an Phoenix medical malpractice lawyer. In the meantime, below is a brief overview of what determines medical malpractice in Arizona.

AZ Duty of Care and Reasonable Conduct in Malpractice

When it comes to personal injury situations in general, there are two basic elements that begin to establish whether someone is negligent. Those two elements are the legal duty of care and whether that duty of care was breached, or not met by the defendant. Generally, this analysis involves determining whether a defendant owed the plaintiff a duty to not place him or her in a position of risk or harm, and whether the placing of the plaintiff in this situation of risk was something that a reasonable person would have done under similar circumstances. If it’s found that the defendant did not act as a reasonable person would have when faced with the same situation, it’s possible that the defendant would be guilty of negligence if that failure to act reasonably caused the damages.

Arizona Medical Malpractice Duties and Standards

When it comes to Arizona medical malpractice cases, the standards are a bit different. This is the case because medical professionals and especially doctors complete a high degree of training. Therefore, if someone is harmed in a medical setting, the analysis as to whether a defendant medical professional is negligent is completed by comparing the medical professional’s conduct to what another medical professional would have done in a similar situation. Therefore, the difference between the standard that’s applied above and that which applied to medical malpractice cases concerns the point of comparison for the conduct in question.

Given this technical reality, anyone who has been harmed while obtaining medical care should seek the help of an Arizona medical malpractice attorney, as presenting a case in this regard involves proving that a doctor or other medical professional did not act in accordance with the norms of other medical professionals. If you need this sort of help, contact a trsuted personal injury attorney in Phoenixtoday to schedule a free initial consultation, as the attorneys at the firm have been successfully proving these cases on behalf of injured clients for many years.