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Monday, 25 April 2016

MARTIN F. D'SOUZA vs MOHD. ISHFAQ, [I (2009) CPJ 32 (SC)] - Reasonable degree of care to be taken

MARTIN F. D'SOUZA vs MOHD. ISHFAQ, [I (2009) CPJ 32 (SC)]

In Halsbury’s Laws of England the degree of skill and care required by a medical practitioner is stated as follows:
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“The practitioner must bring to his task a reasonable degree of skill and knowledge, and must exercise a reasonable degree of care. Neither the very highest nor a very low degree of care and competence, judged in the light of the particular circumstances of each case, is what the law requires, and a pe...rson is not liable in negligence because someone else of greater skill and knowledge would have prescribed different treatment or operated in a different way; nor is he guilty of negligence if he has acted in accordance with a practice accepted as proper by a responsible body of medical men skilled in that particular art, even though a body of adverse opinion also existed among medical men.
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Deviation from normal practice is not necessarily evidence of negligence. To establish liability on that basis it must be shown, (1) that there is a usual and normal practice; (2) that the defendant has not adopted it; and (3) that the course in fact adopted is one no professional man of ordinary skill would have taken had he been acting with ordinary care.”

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