Common Causes of Malpractice Litigation

Malpractice litigation is a complicated procedure. If a patient can prove four elements, it will decide whether or not the error is malpractice. These are professional obligations and a breach of that obligation; an injury that results from this breach; and quantifiable damages.

Plaintiffs must prove these elements by presenting evidence like expert testimony, depositions, and discovery.

The wrong diagnosis or the inability to diagnose

Failure to correctly diagnose an illness or injury accurately can cause serious complications, or even death. It is a typical cause of medical negligence. To prove negligence, the patient or their attorney must demonstrate that a competent doctor under similar circumstances and working in the same specialty would not have misdiagnosed the condition.

It is not always a case of negligence, but. Even highly skilled and experienced doctors make mistakes, and a claim of malpractice must be supported by other factors such as breach, proximate causation, and actual injury. If a physician fails to sterilize his equipment prior to administering anesthesia and the patient becomes infected due to this, the doctor may be guilty.

Lawsuits alleging malpractice are typically filed in state trial courts, where the alleged malpractice Lawyers occurred. However, federal courts may have jurisdiction in certain situations. For malpractice lawyers instance, a lawsuit may be brought in federal court if there is the interpretation of a statute of limitations or when there is a significant diversity of citizenship of the parties to the case. Some claims are settled by binding arbitration. This is a less formal procedure which involves professional decision makers and is intended to save costs, speed up legal proceedings, and eliminate the risk of overly generous juries. However, arbitration is not available for all claims of malpractice.

Dosage for a drug that is not correct

Medication errors, also referred to as medication mistakes are among the leading causes of medical malpractice suits. These errors could be caused by a doctor who has submitted a prescription in the wrong format or giving the patient the incorrect dosage. These mistakes are often avoidable. According to the circumstances an individual pharmacy, hospital or other health care providers could be held responsible for injuries caused by a patient who was given the wrong dosage of a medication.

A doctor can prescribe the wrong medication because of a misdiagnosis or by simply not understanding the prescription correctly. A health care provider may also prescribe the wrong dose due to a breakdown in communication for instance, when nurses read the handwritten prescription of a doctor incorrectly or the pharmacist commits an error in filling the prescription. In other cases the doctor may delay the administration of the correct medication, which could cause the patient's illness to worsening.

To be successful in a malpractice lawsuit, a victim must demonstrate that the medical professional did not meet their standards of care and that the negligence directly caused their injuries. This requires the testimony of a medical expert. Furthermore, a medical negligence case must prove the extent of the victim's injuries and the damages they suffered because of the negligence. This includes the cost of treatment for the victim as well as any wages lost. The greater the loss of the claim, the greater the value of the claim.

Wrong Procedure

It might seem unlikely that medical professionals could perform the incorrect procedure on a patient but this type of incident does occur. A surgeon who commits this error can be found accountable for Malpractice Lawyers malpractice. However, a patient who is injured by a surgical mistake may also be held liable for any negligence that occurred on the process.

Any health professional who is accused of malpractice must prove that the patient was injured through a specific act or failure to act. To prove this the legal counsel of the patient must prove that (1) the doctor was in an obligation to provide care or treatment; (2) that the doctor did not fulfill this duty; (3) that there is a direct causal relationship between the breach and the injury and (4) that the injury causes damages that the legal system is able to resolve.

A breach of duty of care has no value unless it results in injury. This is the reason medical malpractice cases tend to be based on the legal doctrine "res ipsa locquitur," which says that certain injuries are so obvious they can only be explained by negligence.

Based on the circumstances the plaintiff (the person who filed the claim or their legal representative) or their lawyer can decide to file a lawsuit either in state or federal court. The majority of malpractice cases are filed in state court, however under limited circumstances, a medical malpractice law firm lawsuit could be filed in federal district court.

Wrong Surgery

Wrong-site surgery is a rare error, but it can be considered medical negligence if the procedure is performed on the wrong part of the body. This type of error usually occurs as the result of miscommunication between members of a surgical team, or production pressure that results in a surgeon being assigned multiple surgeries at once. In these instances, the surgeon is not the only one with responsibility for an incorrect-site procedure due to a legal rule known as "res ipsa loquitur" which means that the effect of the error speaks for itself and cannot be attributed to negligence.

If a patient gets injured due to surgery performed on the wrong site it is possible that he or she will require additional procedures to fix problems caused by the surgical mistake. This results in costly medical bills for patients and their families. These costs should be considered when calculating the financial consequences of medical malpractice claims.

The majority of times surgeons are held accountable for surgical errors. They are accountable to prepare the patient for the procedure, as well as checking the medical record and chart of the patient, communicating with the rest of the medical staff, and ensuring that the incision was placed at the right place. In some instances, a hospital or anesthesiologist may be held accountable. Medical malpractice claims are typically filed in state court, however, they can be transferred under certain circumstances to federal court.