JeffT:
You are correct the court doesn't care about the little things. But nowhere in this case does this issue come up. The court ruled no standard of care by a reasonable medical professional was violated. The questions that the court answered was, did the doctor violate that standard on two different basis. The court ruled that because the doctor was behind the rest of the surgical staff that he could not reasonable overrule the announcement of the operator when the operator said that the machine was contaminated. The second was that the plaintiff's expert could not prove that a reasonable physician would order a cell salvage machine on standby based on this type of surgery. The court ruled that based on the standard of practice for a laparoscopic surgery such as this, that the device would only be needed if the field of view was obstructed so much that it required the installation of the machine.