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MCMILLAN v. DURANT12/20/1993
ty rule which are equally applicable to the nursing profession. The first was the scarcity of local physicians who would be willing to testify against a peer. Id. While perhaps not as closed a community, present day nursing professionals may also have a certain reluctance to testify against a local peer. The second reason was that the locality rule allowed for a local standard of care below what a patient was entitled to expect. Id. This reasoning is equally applicable to the nursing profession of today.
In formulating the standard of care in King, we adopted language directly from a Washington case, Pederson v. Dumouchel, 72 Wn.2d 73, 431 P.2d 973 (1967), which dealt with the standard of care for physicians and dentists. The omission of nurses or other health care providers should not hold some special meaning. Regardless of the geographic limit on the type of standard, many courts have recognized that nurses are health care professionals who should be subjected to the same standards as other health care providers. In South Carolina, we have adopted a "national" rather than a "local" standard of care. Following the current rule adopted in many other jurisdictions, a South Carolina nurse should be held to the same standard of care as any other South Carolina health care professional.
Accordingly, we extend the holding of King to include nursing professionals and other health care professionals. Therefore, we find no error in the admission of the expert testimony or the rejection of the locality rule, and AFFIRM the trial court.
HARWELL, C.J., and CHANDLER, FINNEY and MOORE, JJ., concur.
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