The pursuer had been injured when the hypodermic needle being used by the defender doctor broke in use. The pursuer said that the direction by the judge as to accepted practice for the use of such needles.
Held: The court considered the dangers in establishing simple medical standards to judge medical treatments: ‘In the realm of diagnosis and treatment there is ample scope for genuine difference of opinion and one man clearly is not negligent merely because his conclusion differs from that of other professional men . . The true test for establishing negligence in diagnosis or treatment on the part of the doctor is whether he has been proved to be guilty of such failure as no doctor of ordinary skill would be guilty of, if acting with ordinary care.’
Judges:
Lord President Clyde
Citations:
[1955] SLT 213, [1955] ScotCS CSIH – 2, 1955 SC 200, [1955-95] PNLR 1
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Penney and Others v East Kent Health Authority CA 16-Nov-1999
A cervical smear screener could be liable in negligence if he failed to spot obvious abnormalities in a test result which indicated that further investigation was required. To say this is not to say that such screening tests were expected to achieve . .
Adopted – Maynard v West Midlands Regional Health Authority HL 1985
The test of professional negligence is the standard of the ordinary skilled man exercising and professing to have that special skill. Lord Scarman said: ‘a doctor who professes to exercise a special skill must exercise the ordinary skill must . .
Cited – Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board SC 11-Mar-2015
Change in Doctors’ Information Obligations
The pursuer claimed that her obstetrician had been negligent, after her son suffered severe injury at birth. The baby faced a birth with shoulder dystocia – the inability of the shoulders to pass through the pelvis. The consultant considered that a . .
Cited – Thwaytes v Sotheby’s ChD 16-Jan-2015
The claimant had sold a painting through the defendant auctioneers. He sought damages after it was certified to be an original rather than copy Caravaggio painting, and worth very substantially more. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Professional Negligence
Updated: 23 October 2022; Ref: scu.219196