Sly v. Powell

Citations

• 87 Kan. 142
• 123 P. 881
• 1912 Kan. LEXIS 110

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Malpractice — Physician—Evidence—Expert Witnesses. In an action against a physician and surgeon to recover damages for malpractice for failing to properly reduce a dislocation and treat an injured hand nonexpert witnesses can testify as to external appearances and manifest conditions observable by any one, but whether a surgical operation has been performed with a reasonable degree of skill, knowledge and care, and whether the patient was thereafter skillfully and properly treated, are questions of science to be established by the testimony of witnesses of special skill and experience and not by testimony of those who are without special learning and skill as to such operations and practice.</p> <p>2. Evidence — Exclamations of Bodily Pain — Hearsay. Testimony of expressions of a natural and spontaneous character, indicating present bodily pain, is competent as original evidence, but the declarations of an injured party as to his.past feelings and symptoms, and which are not voluntary exclamations of present pain and suffering, are hearsay and should be rejected.</p> <p>3. -Declarations of Physician. Ordinarily the declarations of a physician, who is not a party to the action and who was consulted by a patient as to an injury or ailment, are not admissible in evidence to show the physical condition of the patient.</p> <p>4. Instructions — Qualifications Required of Physician. After instructing the jury correctly as to the skill, learning and care to be possessed and exercised by general practitioners, the court further instructed that a physician and surgeon who holds himself out to the world as an expert in any of the branches of medicine and surgery is required to possess and exercise a higher degree of knowledge and skill than the ordinary practitioner. Held, that nothing in the testimony herein warranted an instruction on the theory that appellant had held himself out as a specialist or that the degree of skill and care requir