The Difference between Medical Negligence and a Bad Result

The difference between medical negligence and a bad result is medical negligence is when a doctor fails to adhere to the appropriate standard and deviates from that standard and is negligent. A bad result is when, unfortunately, you can have a bad result; the surgery doesn’t turn out the way that you had hoped or the doctor had hoped. However, in getting records and having those records evaluated by an expert, our expert tells us that the doctor acted appropriately, it just was an unfortunate outcome--- that’s a bad result, that is not actionable. Medicine is not an exact science and sometimes there are bad results. The difference, though, is when a doctor deviates from accepted standards of care and a bad result occurs, that is actionable. Where the doctor adheres to the appropriate standard of care, but unfortunately a bad result occurs, then that would not be actionable. Thank you.