Common Causes of Malpractice Litigation

Malpractice litigation is a complex procedure. If a patient can demonstrate four elements, it will determine whether or not the mistake is malpractice. These are professional obligations or breach of that duty; an injury resulting from the breach; and measurable damages.

Plaintiffs must also prove the facts using evidence like expert testimony and depositions.

Undiagnosed or Incorrectly Diagnosed

Inability to recognize an illness or injury accurately can cause serious complications, or even death. The misdiagnosis of a patient is a frequent cause of medical negligence. To show negligence, the patient or their lawyer must show that a qualified doctor in similar circumstances would not have misdiagnosed the condition.

A misdiagnosis is not always negligence. Even highly skilled and experienced doctors make mistakes, and any claim of Davenport Malpractice Law Firm has to be supported by other factors like breach, proximate causality and actual injury. If a doctor fails to sterilize his equipment prior to administering anesthesia, and the patient develops an infection because of this, he could be liable.

Lawsuits that claim malpractice are usually filed in state trial courts, where the alleged malpractice took place. Federal courts could however have jurisdiction in certain circumstances. For instance, a claim could be filed in federal court if there is a dispute over the time limit or when there is a significant variation in the citizenship of the parties involved in the case. In other cases, certain claims are settled through voluntary binding arbitration. This is a less formal procedure that is governed by professional decision makers. It is designed to cut costs, speed up legal proceedings, and eliminate the risks associated with generous juries. Arbitration is not always available in cases of malpractice.

The wrong dosage of medication

Medication errors are one of the most common causes of medical malpractice lawsuits. They can be caused by a physician prescribing a prescription in error or delivering the wrong dose to the patient. These errors are generally preventable. According to the circumstances an individual pharmacy, hospital or other health care provider could be held accountable for the injuries caused by a patient who was given the wrong dosage of a medication.

A doctor could prescribe wrong medication to a patient as a result of an inaccurate diagnosis or simply because they misread the prescription. A health care professional could also administer the wrong dosage due to an interruption in communication for example, when nurses read a doctor's handwritten script incorrectly or the pharmacist makes a mistake in filling out the prescription. In other instances the doctor may delay in administering the correct medication to the patient, resulting in their condition becoming worse.

A person seeking compensation must prove, in order to prevail on a fox river grove malpractice lawyer lawsuit, that the medical professional breached their standards of practice and that their injuries were directly caused by the negligence. This requires testimony from a medical expert. Furthermore, a medical negligence case must establish the severity of a victim's injuries and the damages they sustained because of the negligence. This includes the cost of treatment as well as any lost wage. The more money you lose the greater the value of the claim.

Wrong Procedure

It might seem unlikely that medical professionals would perform the incorrect procedure on a patient, but this type of mishap is quite common. A surgeon who commits this error could be held accountable for malpractice. However patients who are injured by a surgical mistake could also be held responsible for any negligence that occurred the way to the procedure.

Any health professional who is accused of negligence must prove that the patient was injured due to a specific act or inaction. To establish this the legal team of the patient must prove that (1) the doctor was in an obligation to provide care or treatment; (2) that the doctor violated that 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 could deal with.

A breach of duty of care is no meaning unless it result in injury. This is the reason medical malpractice cases are usually built on the legal principle "res ipsa locquitur" which says that certain injuries are so obvious that 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 could decide to file the case in federal or state court. The majority of malpractice cases are filed in state courts, however in certain circumstances the case of medical negligence could be filed with a federal district court.

Wrong Surgery

The wrong-site surgery isn't common however, it could be a case of medical malpractice when the procedure is done in the wrong location of your body. This kind of error usually occurs as caused by miscommunication between the members of a surgical team, or production pressure that leads to the surgeon being tasked with multiple surgeries at once. In these situations, the surgeon is not alone in his or her responsibility for a surgery that was performed on the wrong site since there is a legal rule known as "res ipsa loquitur" which means that the consequence of the error is evident and can be attributed to negligence.

If a patient gets injured due to surgery performed on the wrong site, he or she may require additional procedures to repair problems that are aggravated by the mistake. This leads to costly medical expenses for patients and their families. It is crucial to take these costs into account when calculating the financial burden of medical malpractice claims.

Surgeons are often held liable for surgical errors because they are the ones who are accountable for preparing for the operation as well as double-checking the patient's charts and medical records, communicating effectively with the other members of the medical team and making sure that the incision has been placed at the right place. In some cases an anesthesiologist or hospital may also be held responsible. Medical malpractice claims are generally filed in state courts, but can be transferred under certain circumstances to federal court.