Opinion ID: 2303214
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: duty to consult a specialist

Text: Dr. England may have had good reason to consult a specialist, since he was a neurologist and had never treated an intracapsular fracture. The defendant's liability, however, is not dependent upon Doctor England's experience. Unlike Dr. England, the defendant himself has treated many fractures of the hip and femur and nothing in the evidence shows that he lacked the skill or experience required for treatment of plaintiff's injuries, or that an orthopedic specialist would have treated her injuries other than as the defendant treated them. The evidence, in fact, is to the contrary. [3] Collins v. Itoh, supra, although involving injuries different from those sustained by the plaintiff here, addressed many of the arguments advanced in the instant case. Concerning the duty of an attending physician to consult a specialist, the Court there stated: Certainly no duty to call in another doctor arises when every indication is that the doctor is fully capable of performing the operation and treating his patient in the post-operative phase. 503 P.2d 36, at 42. If we were to hold that the evidence in the present case established a duty on the defendant's part to consult an orthopedic specialist, the effect of our decision would be to say that a physician, even though shown to be competent to treat the illness or injury at hand, subjects himself to liability whenever he relies on his own skills and applies them diligently, but fails to effect a cure. Since there is no evidence in this case that the defendant's failure to consult a specialist proximately caused or aggravated the plaintiff's injuries, such a holding would not only inhibit the practice of medicine to the point where even the simplest procedure would have to be performed in tandem, but also, it would render the self-reliant physician an insurer contrary to what this Court has held the law of Maine to be. See, Coombs v. King, supra. We hold that, apart from the question of informed consent which we shall next discuss, the evidence was insufficient to generate a jury issue as to the defendant's negligence, because the plaintiff failed to introduce expert testimony to show the standard of care required of the defendant, any departure from that standard, and any proximate causal relationship between such a departure, if any, and the plaintiff's injuries. Nor was any showing made of any duty and consequential failure to consult a specialist.