Medical Abandonment

Patient Abandonment in Georgia

Doctors owe a number of duties to the people with whom they’ve established a doctor-patient relationship. If a person is at a critical stage of their care and their physician leaves without making the appropriate arrangements to ensure they are cared for, it may be considered Georgia medical abandonment. This can result in serious injury or death for the patient.

If you believe that you or a loved one has been the victim of medical abandonment, contact our Atlanta law offices today for a free consultation with experienced medical malpractice lawyers.

Medical Abandonment and Doctor Negligence

Doctors and other members of the medical community have a duty to provide their patients with a certain level of care. This standard of care refers to the attention, caution, and prudence that a reasonable doctor would exercise. In other words, if one were to ask most reasonable physicians how they would behave in a given medical situation, their answer would be the standard of care. The breach of this standard of care is considered medical malpractice.

Medical abandonment can be a very serious offense, especially if a patient is injured or killed as a result of it. To prove that medical abandonment has occurred and the standard of care was breached, a number of things must be established and supported by evidence:

There must have been a caregiver-patient relationship established between the two parties. This means that the doctor, nurse, or other healthcare professional accepted the patient’s assignment, possibly by diagnosing, treating, or prescribing. The question of when and if this relationship has formed can be answered by a skilled Georgia medical malpractice lawyer.
The doctor terminated this relationship before completion against the patient’s will. At some point during the course of treatment, the doctor discontinued care, and the patient was not in favor of this decision.
The doctor knew that the patient was at a critical stage of treatment. The patient must have not have been well yet, and the doctor must have been aware of this.
The doctor did not provide sufficient notice of termination to allow the patient to seek proper care, and did not arrange for another physician of comparable skill to handle the patent’s treatment.
The patient must have been injured as a result of the doctor’s behavior.