# Jones v. Chidester

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · June 17, 1992 · 531 Pa. 31

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9694559

## Case

- **Full name:** Billy JONES and Dorothy Jones, His Wife, Appellants, v. John H. CHIDESTER, M.D., Appellee
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** June 17, 1992
- **Citations:** 531 Pa. 31; 610 A.2d 964; 1992 Pa. LEXIS 369
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by McDERMOTT
- **Judges:** Nix, Larsen, Flaherty, McDermott, Zappala, Papadakos, Cappy
- **Cited by:** 32 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9694559

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating that "[w]here competent medical authority is divided, a physician will not be held responsible if in the exercise of his judgment he followed a course of treatment advocated by a considerable number of recognized and respected professionals in his given area of experti…

## Opinion text

McDERMOTT, Justice,
concurring.
When a physician is charged with employing a course of treatment and it fails of its purpose though properly and carefully administered, the issue becomes whether that treatment was an acceptable medical procedure which the physician was justified in believing would work a cure. The question involved is not was it done negligently, but should it have been done at all. That question is beyond the ability of laymen to answer: whether it were best to chill or heat, use medicines, intervene with scalpel or await nature, or approach from back, front, top or bottom to reach the site of ill, are questions over which doctors disagree. One group of doctors, of skill and competence may withhold the scalpel, another group of equal competence may believe in quick response. When each group has its advocates, and each has its arguable reasons, a doctor of either, cannot be faulted if he properly administers the one to his knowledge and experience seems the better, so long as that group is comprised of a sufficient number of reputable and respected members.
Thus, an isolated expert cannot argue it was his own belief that a procedure was inappropriate, because then this belief would be elevated, against experience and knowledge, to a separate level, though a considerable portion of the world of medicine be against it.
I join in the opinion of the majority.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9694559. Public record. Not legal advice.