Hawai‘i Medical Malpractice Lawyer

Doctors and hospitals have the same duty that all of us have: the duty of due care.

“A concept used in tort law to indicate the standard of care or the legal duty one owes to others. Negligence, in the context of due care, is the failure to use that degree of care which a person of ordinary prudence and reason [the reasonable man] would exercise under the same circumstances. See 198 S.E. 2d 526, 529. Also, the “[f]ailure to exercise due care is the failure to perform some specific duty required by law.” 153 S.E. 2d 356, 359. It “means care which is reasonably commensurate with a known danger and the seriousness of the consequences which are liable to follow its omission. . . . Due care may be either ordinary care or a high degree of care, according to the circumstances of the particular case.” 438 P. 2d 477, 482.”

Essentially, this means that doctors and medical professionals have a duty not to harm others through negligence and a duty to follow the rules and be careful. The legal standard for due care is to do what a reasonable person would do or refrain from doing in a particular situation.

Ordinarily, prudent professionals exercise due care while avoiding extremes of both audacity and caution. Used as a test of liability in cases of negligence, this standard is not applied uniformly to all persons because varying degrees of reasonableness may be expected from a minor (infant), an adult, an unskilled person, or a professional such as a doctor. This also applies to the prudent man rule.

This concept is really very simple. It’s common sense and applies to all of us in our daily lives just as it applies to doctors and hospitals. They have to conduct themselves in a reasonable and careful manner.

The conduct of a doctor or hospital must follow the medical standard of care. That standard is developed by the medical profession through the medical schools and the doctors and hospitals themselves. It isn’t attorneys or the courts that define the standard of care in medicine; it is the science of medicine that sets the rules. Doctors and hospitals have a duty to follow their own rules. If they don’t, and a patient suffers harm, the doctor or hospital pays for the damage they cause. Just like anyone else, physicians must pay for their mistakes.

Doctors and hospitals cannot be sued in Hawai‘i just because a patient thinks they were injured by a doctor or hospital. What the patient or the patient’s attorney thinks is not even considered. Before a doctor or hospital can be sued, a doctor or hospital authority from the medical profession must testify under oath that the claim has merit and that the personal injury or death that resulted was because the doctor or hospital did something wrong or negligent and that it was below the standard of care that caused the injury or death.

It’s very difficult to get a doctor to testify against another doctor. For that reason, very few medical malpractice lawsuits are ever filed. In 2007, there were less than 50 lawsuits for medical malpractice filed in Hawai‘i. Unfortunately, because of the powerful lobbying of the medical profession and their allies in the insurance industry, the public is not often given the truth about medical malpractice.

Types of Medical Malpractice Claims We Handle

At Wayne Parsons Law Office, we handle a wide variety of different types of medical malpractice claims in Honolulu and throughout Hawai‘i, including but not limited to the following types:

• Birth Injuries
• Surgical Errors/Wrong Site Surgery
• Dangerous Drug Claims
• Misdiagnosis
• Failure to Diagnose or Treat
• Informed Consent Issues

Wayne Parsons Law Office has handled serious injury and death cases involving negligent doctors and hospitals since 1983. Each case is evaluated carefully, and we use only the most highly qualified and respected doctors if a case is accepted. Wayne Parsons’ background in science and engineering is an important benefit that our clients have in these very difficult matters. To learn how Wayne Parsons, Hawai‘i medical malpractice lawyer, can help, get in touch with us today.