Medication Malpractice in Psychiatry: How New York Courts Separate a Bad Outcome From a Departure

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Psychiatric Malpractice

A patient who is harmed while taking a psychiatric medication has suffered a bad outcome. Whether that outcome is also a departure from accepted practice is a separate question, and the gap between the two is where most medication cases are won or lost. An expert who treats every adverse event as proof of negligence has skipped the analysis the law requires. What a New York medication claim must actually prove A psychiatric medication claim sounds in medical malpractice, and in New York that means four things must hold together: a physician-patient duty, a departure from accepted medical practice, proximate cause, and damages. The departure element is the one the prescriber controls, and New

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