Hiding Waldo.

Abstract

In medical malpractice, physicians are deemed negligent when deviating from standard of care (SOC), which is what reasonable and prudent physicians would have done in similar circumstances [1]. “Reasonable physicians” are abstractions articulated to juries by expert witnesses curated by plaintiff and defense lawyers. Their versions of SOC are oppositional, not just because tort is adversarial but bemedicine is often gray. Right and wrong aren’t normative. Reasonable physicians can reasonably disagree about what’s reasonable; that is, they can disagree about SOC.