Liability for failure to warn of a risk that does not materialize?

Doctors in the UK may be reconciled to the fact that they can be held liable for failing to warn patients about complications associated with procedures. They nevertheless might reasonably assume that their liability will be confined to situations where there has been a failure to warn about an inherent complication that subsequently occurred. It might therefore also be assumed that, where a doctor has properly warned the patient about the risk of the complication, the patient cannot seek to recover but this short paper describes several overseas cases where doctors have been held liable in these situations and postulates why courts in the UK may be attracted to this extension of liability.