Medical error – civil liability for the damage

Abstract

The paper analyzes the civil law aspects of the responsibility of medical workers and institutions due to the damage caused by the doctors` mistakes in providing medical care. The aim of this paper is to present all the basics of physician responsibility, if it is established that there is a close connection between the error and the proven error and damage caused to the health of the patient, but also to third parties. The issue of medical error is not exclusively related to compensation for damages, since it heavily relies on medical law too. Although mistakes are mainly caused by the wrong actions of the doctors in performing their professional activities, the paper also deals with the responsibility of medical institutions for the damage being caused. An inaccurate definition of the legal nature of doctors’ responsibilities, obligations imposed on medical workers by law, the definition of errors in a medical treatment, as well as the legal basis of liability to third parties, indicate that there are many not only legal but also ethical and moral dilemmas requaring the additional attention and analysis, which is also the goal of this paper.

Keywords

• medical error
• civil liability
• ethics
• damage
• patients’ rights
• civil rights