The earliest reported medical malpractice case was Stratton v. Swanlond decided in 1374. The defendant surgeon attempted to repair a woman’s traumatically mangled hand. The plaintiff claimed that the surgeon guaranteed to cure her injury for a reasonable fee, but after his treatment her hand remained severely deformed. The lawsuit was dismissed because of a procedural error in the Writ of Complaint; however, the judge set forth principles to follow in future cases, which are recognized today. He stated that a physician should be liable when a patient is injured as a result of negligence, however if the physician exercised all due care, he would not be liable even if he did not obtain a cure. The first medical malpractice lawsuit in the United States occurred in 1794. The plaintiff claimed the defendant operated on his wife in a most unskillful, ignorant and cruel manner causing his wife to…show more content… It wanted to promote standardization in training physicians and in the practice of medicine. By achieving this goal the AMA hoped to enhance the social and economic standing of the medical profession. It wanted to improve the scientific face of medicine to make it more effective and respected. Ironically, developing standards of practice for physicians to follow created benchmarks by which physicians were judged in medical malpractice litigation. When standards are in place the potential for deviating from them arises. The physicians who aspired to the highest level of medical practice possible were well educated and well trained. They were successful professionally and financially, ironically making them attractive targets for medical malpractice claims. The charlatans who did not claim to follow any standards and who claimed no widely recognized expertise were judgment proof. With the arrival of medical malpractice insurance at the end of the 19th century, all physicians became prospective
