In simple terms medical malpractice is where a medical professional has made a serious mistake or error in judgment which has caused their patient serious harm, or in the most tragic of cases their patient has died as result of either their action or inaction, depending on the specific circumstances of the situation. For any individual to bring a case for malpractice against any person in the medical field it must meet two basic, but critical, criteria:
1. It must be a clearly identifiable mistake or error
2. It must have caused the patient serious harm
Malpractice cases are not suitable for where a medical professional has merely disagreed with you or done something you personally disagree with – there must be verifiable proof that harm had been caused to a patient as a result of their actions.
What you may be surprised to hear is that medical malpractice is far more common than you might realize, even in a country like the United States which has some of the best healthcare professionals in the world. In fact several studies have estimated that more than 95,000 people are seriously injured as a result of medical malpractice every single year in this country.
The most typical types of medical malpractice are as follows:
Misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis – the medical professional failed to diagnose a potentially life-threatening issue correctly. Cancer is one of the most commonly misdiagnosed medical conditions, often with tragic results.
Surgical error – the surgeon or attending medical staff left an instrument inside the patient or, even more worryingly, the surgery was performed on the wrong patient. There have been cases of patients having kidneys removed due to errors in documentation.
Prescription error – this is where a medical professional has supplied the wrong amount of medication or completely the wrong type of medication, often with very serious results. Documented cases exist where patients were prescribed medication that caused the same symptoms in patients as Alzheimer\’s, Parkinson\’s and dementia.
Infection – a patient suffered serious harm or health complications due to a lack of sterile instruments being used or the environment their procedure was performed in was not sterile.
Child birth – This is where a doctor or other medical professional failed to monitor the condition of both mother and child during labor, which resulted in serious harm to the mother, the infant or in the worst possible cases to both.
When it comes to bringing a malpractice case against a specific doctor or hospital it\’s important that you know that there are deadlines you have to follow – commonly referred to as statutes of limitation. What these basically mean is that you have a fixed amount of time to bring your case forward (usually between 1 and 5 years) but if the statute of limitation passes your ability to pursue a malpractice claim will vanish.
If you think you might have reason to pursue a malpractice case then the sooner you contact a trained malpractice attorney then better your results can be. Remember you could be entitled to quite a lot of compensation based on the results of the case itself.