Imposition of liability for medical malpractice almost always requires the existence of a physician-patient relationship. Those situations in which a physician’s duty extends to a non-patient are few and narrowly circumscribed. The threshold question of whether a physician owes a duty of care to a third party is a question of law for the court.1
Cases where the existence of a duty to a third party is alleged often involve a failure to warn of risks to the third party created by the physician’s treatment of the patient and harm to the third party resulting from that treatment. The issue also arises in cases where a patient causes harm to a third party or, because of a particular medical condition, poses a risk to the public at large.
Continuing Care
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