English v. Free

Citations

• 205 Pa. 624
• 55 A. 777
• 1903 Pa. LEXIS 627

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Malpractice—Surgeon—Reasonable skill.</p> <p>A surgeon is not an insurer of his patients. He undertakes to possess and in the treatment of a case to employ such reasonable skill and diligence as is ordinarily exercised in his jn-ofession ; and in judging of the degree of skill regard is to be had to the advanced state of the profession at the time.</p> <p>In an action against a surgeon to recover damages for alleged malpractice where it appears that the defendant was a skillful surgeon in good repute, that he gave attention to the case, and that he called in to aid him two other competent surgeons, the fact that he may have been mistaken in his diagnosis, is not sufficient to convict him of negligence where the undisputed testimony of a number of surgeons was that the plaintiff’s injury was such as that its exact character was very difficult to detect. The burden of proof in such a ease is on the plaintiff to show by the weight of the evidence that the surgeon failed to treat him with reasonable and ordinary professional skill.</p>