Emedinews:Insights on Medicolegal Issues:Medical negligence–Supreme Court decisions in the United States

The implied contract of a physician or surgeon is not to cure…but to treat the case with diligence and skill.

• In 1832 Connecticut court focused on the word "ordinary". A physician and surgeon, in the performance of his professional duties, is liable for injuries resulting from the want of ordinary diligence, care and skill…"Ordinary" means usual, common…If in the performance of any operation there was a want of ordinary diligence, care, and skill, or if there was carelessness, then the defendant–physician is liable.
• Twenty–one years later, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled similarly, emphasizing the word "reasonable," in addition to "ordinary."
• The implied contract of a physician or surgeon is not to cure…but to treat the case with diligence and skill. The question is...whether the doctor had employed such skill and diligence as are ordinarily exercised in his profession… The rule (is) to be reasonable…The law demands…not extraordinary skill such as belongs only to a few men of rare genius and endowments, but that degree which ordinarily characterizes the profession.
• In 1860, the Supreme Court of Illinois issued its first decision on what constitutes the standard of care of a medical physician. The lawsuit claimed that a physician, who incidentally was represented by a then–practicing attorney named Abraham Lincoln, had been negligent for improperly applying a cast to treat a wrist fracture that had been sustained by the plaintiff.
• When a person assumes the profession of physician and surgeon, he must be held to employ a reasonable amount of skill and care. For anything short of that degree of skill in his practice, the law will hold him responsible for any injury which may result from its absence. While he is not required to possess the highest order of qualification, to which men attain, still he must possess and exercise that degree of skill which is ordinarily possessed by members of the profession. And whether the injury results from a want of skill or the want of its application, he will, in either case, be equally liable.