Does a surgeon have to tell you if she’s never performed this surgery before?

tylerThis is a topic I’ve been wanting to write about for a while.  Then, the other day, I learned I don’t have to, because my friend Tyler Goldberg-Hoss (an attorney who focuses on medical malpractice cases) already described the issue perfectly.  Check it out here.

The gist? Not unless you ask.  That’s not a hard-and-fast rule, and there may be cases where the doctor’s inexperience is so important that the failure to tell you about it is deemed malpractice.  But the cases to date in Washington have not come out the right way.

So … ask!  If you tell a doctor it matters to you, and they don’t tell you, no judge or jury in the world would let them off.

Peter Mullenix