Medical practitioner

The Court of Appeal Civil Division held, in allowing the defendant surgeon’s appeal against a finding negligent performance of a breast operation, that the judge had speculated on the evidence to have reached the conclusion that he had done. The question which the judge ought to have asked himself was whether anything said or done by the defendant at the consultation would have been reasonably understood by a reasonable patient in the position of the claimant as an assurance that it would be of the order of five to ten years before she would require a mastopexy.