Standard of care refers to the level of skill, attention, and treatment that a reasonable professional in the same field would provide under similar circumstances. In medical malpractice cases, this means comparing what a doctor, nurse, or hospital actually did to what other competent medical professionals would typically do in the same situation. For example, if a patient comes to the emergency room with chest pain, the standard of care might require running certain tests like an EKG - if the doctor skips these tests and the patient has a heart attack, they may have fallen below the standard of care.
The standard of care isn't about being perfect or achieving the best possible outcome, but about following accepted medical practices and making reasonable decisions based on the information available at the time. To prove medical malpractice, an injured patient must show that their healthcare provider fell below this standard and that this failure directly caused their injury or made their condition worse. This usually requires getting another medical expert to testify about what the standard of care should have been and how the defendant doctor or hospital failed to meet it.
