''Maynard v. West Midlands Regional Health Authority'' 9851 All ER 635 is an

English tort law English tort law concerns the compensation for harm to people's rights to health and safety, a clean environment, property, their economic interests, or their reputations. A "tort" is a wrong in civil, rather than criminal law, that usually requi ...

case concerning the Bolam test for professional negligence. The patient presented with symptoms of

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

but both the consultant physician and the consultant surgeon took the view that

Hodgkin's disease Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is a type of lymphoma, in which cancer originates from a specific type of white blood cell called lymphocytes, where multinucleated Reed–Sternberg cells (RS cells) are present in the patient's lymph nodes. The condition wa ...

carcinoma Carcinoma is a malignancy that develops from epithelial cells. Specifically, a carcinoma is a cancer that begins in a tissue that lines the inner or outer surfaces of the body, and that arises from cells originating in the endodermal, mesodermal ...

, and

sarcoidosis Sarcoidosis (also known as ''Besnier-Boeck-Schaumann disease'') is a disease involving abnormal collections of inflammatory cells that form lumps known as granulomata. The disease usually begins in the lungs, skin, or lymph nodes. Less commonly af ...

were also possibilities, the first of which if present would have required remedial steps to be taken in its early stages. Instead of waiting for the results of the sputum tests, the consultants carried out a

mediastinoscopy Mediastinoscopy is a procedure that enables visualization of the contents of the mediastinum, usually for the purpose of obtaining a biopsy. Mediastinoscopy is often used for staging of lymph nodes of lung cancer or for diagnosing other conditions ...

to get a biopsy. The inherent risk of damage was to the left laryngeal recurrent nerve, even if the operation was properly done. In the event, only tuberculosis was confirmed. Unfortunately, the risk became a reality and the patient suffered a paralysis of the left vocal cord. The decision of the physician and the surgeon to proceed was said by their expert peers to be reasonable in all the circumstances. The trial judge initially held that the surgeon had been negligent for failing to use a different surgical technique that was advocated by one group of medical experts. However, the House of Lords reversed the decision, stating that ''differences of opinion and practice within the medical profession are inevitable, and that a court's preference for one medical opinion over another is not a basis for finding negligence.'' This decision reaffirmed the ''Bolam'' principle, which holds that a doctor will not be considered negligent if they have acted in accordance with a responsible body of medical opinion.

Notes

English tort case law 1985 in United Kingdom case law {{UK-law-stub

See also

Notes