Nurse Midwife: Physician Unqualified As To Negligence.
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
January 2017
A registered nurse who is certified by the State Board of Nursing as a nurse midwife is considered a specialist. To testify against a specialist in malpractice litigation, an expert witness must have spent the preceding year in active clinical practice or in the instruction of students in the same field as the specialist. The physician in this case is not qualified to testify as an expert on the standard of care for a certified registered nurse midwife.
COURT OF APPEALS OF ARIZONA November 29, 2016A patient sued claiming she was injured by negligent application by a certified registered nurse midwife of suprapubic pressure during her delivery.
The Court of Appeals of Arizona dismissed the case on summary judgment without having to weigh the question of the defendant nurse’s negligence. State law in Arizona as in many US states restricts expert testimony in healthcare malpractice cases to experts who are currently involved in clinical practice or clinical education in the same field as the defendant healthcare provider against whom they propose to testify.
A physician, simply by virtue of being a physician, is not qualified and cannot testify on the standard of care for a nurse. Without expert testimony from an expert whom the law regards as a true ex-pert a patient’s malpractice suit must be dismissed without further consideration of the merits of the case.
St. George v. Plimpton, __ P.3d __, 2016 WL 6956630 (Ariz. App., November 29, 2016).More from nursinglaw.com
http://www.nursinglaw.com/nurse-midwife-negligence.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/nurse-midwife-shoulder-dystocia.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/nurse-midwives-liability.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/midwife.htm