Medical Malpractice claims in Georgia are complicated and require a skilled attorney to navigate both the procedural and substantive components. In Georgia, medical practitioners are expected to exercise ‘that degree of care, skill, and ability which is ordinarily exercised under similar conditions and like circumstances by those in the same or similar fields’ In a nutshell, an obstetrician, for example, is expected to perform her duties to the skill level of a “reasonable” obstetrician facing the same situation under the same circumstances. The rebuttable presumption is that the doctor performed her services in a way that meets that standard. Therefore, to bring a medical malpractice claim, you have to allege that the practitioner “breached”, or fell below, that standard of care.

So how does one go about litigating a medical malpractice claim? Before you can file a claim in court, you would have to find a medical practitioner in the same or similar field (another obstetrician in this example) who would sign a statement under oath laying out at least one example of the practitioner’s failure to meet that “reasonable practitioner” standard, along with a statement linking the failure to whatever damage/injury is being alleged.

As a matter of course, once a Plaintiff files their Complaint with this expert affidavit attached, the Defendant practitioner would consult with its own experts, and attempt to find like practitioners, e.g., an obstetrician, who would refute the Plaintiff’s expert and claim either (a) that the Defendant did not breach the standard of care, or (b) that the breach did not cause the injury complained of. Because of the involvement of various (high-paid!) experts, medical malpractice cases are very expensive to litigate. They are also difficult to prosecute because complicated medicine and science can easily overwhelm a jury, leaving them to base verdicts on “their gut”, which usually favors the doctors and nurses.

Fareesh has been litigating medical malpractice cases on both the defense and plaintiff sides, and brings experience an perspectives from both that are invaluable when you or a loved one has been a victim of medical malpractice. If you think you may have a claim, call us today, as you only have a short amount of time to bring your claim or risk losing it forever.