Wohlert v. Seibert

Citations

• 23 Pa. Super. 213
• 1903 Pa. Super. LEXIS 42

Syllabus

<p>Physicians — Malpractice—Wrong diagnosis — Glaucoma—Conjunctivitis.</p> <p>In an action against a physician for malpractice no presumption of negligence can arise from the fact that the defendant failed to effect a cure. The burden of proof in such a case is on the plaintiff to show that the defendant did not exercise reasonable care, skill and diligence in his treatment of the case.</p> <p>The standard by which the degree of care, skill and diligence required by physicians is to be determined, is not the highest order of qualification obtainable, but is the care, skill and diligence which are ordinarily possessed by the average of the members of the profession in good standing. The acquisition of professional learning and skill being required by law, it is the duty of a physician and surgeon to acquire the same, and he is liable for injuries caused by the failure of duty to exercise such learning and skill. The plaintiff must show, not only that the physician was negligent or unskilful, but also that the injury resulted from such negligence or unskilfulness.</p> <p>A physician who is merely a general practitioner cannot be held liable in damages to a patient for diagnosing and treating a disease of the eye as conjunctivitis when it was in fact glaucoma, where the evidence shows that glaucoma is a very rare disease, that it is incurable in character, that its certain diagnosis could be made only by the skilled expert of special training, skill and experience, that it should be treated with remedies and appliances which are never expected to be within the reach of the general practitioner of medicine, that its prominent symptoms were so nearly identical with those of conjunctivitis that the diagnosis made by the defendant was one reasonably to be expected from a general practitioner, and that the treatment given was not found faulty by any general practitioner or expert who testified in the cáse^l</p>