Yard v. Gibbons

Citations

• 95 Kan. 802
• 149 P. 422
• 1915 Kan. LEXIS 296

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Physician and Surgeon — Obstetrics—Malpractice—Petition States Single Cause of Action. The petition in which the plaintiff alleged in substance that the defendant was employed as a physician to care for her in her confinement and that he negligently produced a premature delivery, causing a laceration, and also failed to advise her of her condition and to carefully and skillfully treat her after the birth of the child, by all of which she was severely injured, states a single cause of action.</p> <p>2. Same — Malpractice—Test of Treatment — Expert Witnesses —Different Schools of Medicine. Whether a physician or surgeon charged with malpractice has treated the patient or performed an operation with reasonable skill and care is ordinarily to be tested by the standards of the school to which the physician or surgeon belongs, but if there is uniformity in the principles and rules of practice of the different schools as to any particular branch a qualified practitioner of any of the schools is competent to testify as to whether the treatment administered or the operation performed within the scope mentioned was properly or negligently done.</p> <p>3. Same — Malpractice—Nonexpert Witnesses. Ordinarily only physicians and surgeons of skill and experience are competent to testify as to whether a patient has been treated or an operation performed with a reasonable degree of skill and care, but testimony as to many matters connected with the treatment of a patient, feuch as the statements and acts of the physician or surgeon as well as the external appearances and manifest conditions which are observable by any one, may be given by nonexpert witnesses.</p> <p>4. Trial — Instruction— Not a Factor in the Verdict — No Error. The propriety of an instruction upon a feature of the case becomes immaterial when a special finding of the jury eliminates that feature from the case and shows that it was not a factor in the verdict.</p> <p>5. Physicians