The Importance Of Medical Colligence In Roman Law

1929 Words4 Pages

The concept that every person who enters into a learned profession undertakes to bring to the exercise of a reasonable degree of care and skill dates back to the laws of ancient Rome and England. Writings on medical responsibility can be traced back to 2030 BC when the Code of Hammurabi provided that “If the doctor has treated a gentlemen with a lancet of bronze and has caused the gentleman to die, or has opened an abscess of the eye for a gentleman with a bronze lancet, and has caused the loss of the gentleman’s eye, one shall cut off his hands. Under Roman law, medical malpractice was a recognized wrong. Around 1200 AD, Roman law was expanded and introduced to continental Europe. After the Norman conquest of 1066, English common law was developed, …show more content…

To win monetary compensation for injury related to medical negligence, a patient needs to prove that substandard medical care resulted in an injury. The allegation of medical negligence must be filed in a timely manner; this legally prescribed period is called the “statute of limitation” and varies from state to state. Once the injured person has established that negligence led to injury, the court calculates the monetary damages that will be paid in compensation. Damages take into account both actual economic loss such as lost income and cost of future medical care, as well as noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering. Physicians practicing in the United States generally carry medical malpractice insurance to protect themselves in case of medical negligence and unintentional injury. In some instances, such insurance is required as a condition of hospital privileges, or employment with a medical …show more content…

Medical malpractice is a specific subset of tort law that deals with professional negligence. “Tort” is the Norman word for “wrong,” and tort law is a body of law that creates and provides remedies for civil wrongs that are distinct from contractual duties or criminal wrongs. “Negligence” is generally defined as conduct that falls short of a standard; the most commonly used standard in tort law is that of a so-called “reasonable person.” The reasonable person standard is a legal fiction, created so the law can have a reference standard of reasoned conduct that a person in similar circumstances would do, or not do, in order to protect another person from a foreseeable risk of

Open Document