Medical failures and incompetence are some of the grounds for many deaths in the US. Every year, thousands die because of medical errors. Some of them even suffer from incorrect or deferred diagnoses from physicians at least once in their lives. Most of the time, these medical errors lead to disastrous results.
With many casualties and accumulating injuries, you should develop the initiative to determine what to check out if you suspect medical negligence. You should also know how to act if you doubt your doctor’s evaluation, and you think that they made an error that led to an injury.
Below are vital pieces of information to keep in mind for you to know what to do if any of your family members becomes a victim of medical malpractice.
1. Understanding Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice occurs when a medical professional, like doctors and nurses, has violated human care protocols. You can say that a medical professional has breached the protocol of care once they do something illogical during a certain situation.
When this happens, you should immediately consult a medical malpractice lawyer. You’ll know the reason behind immediate consulting with your lawyer below.
2. Common Medical Malpractices
To understand it better, you can cite a lot of circumstances that illustrate medical malpractice. Some of the common medical malpractices are the following:
• A wrong diagnosis or incompetency to diagnose
• Delayed treatment
• Unsatisfactory follow-up care
• Incorrect recording of patient history
• Untimely discharge from the hospital
• Incorrect pharmaceutical prescriptions
• Incorrect dosage prescription
• Mistakes in surgery
• Performing treatment without consent
• Performing irrelevant surgery
• Ignoring or incorrect interpretation of laboratory test results
• Violating the doctor-patient confidentiality
• Requesting incorrect laboratory tests
3. Components Of A True Medical Malpractice
However, the circumstances above aren’t immediately medical malpractices if they don’t meet the elements constituting medical malpractice.
On the other hand, you can file a valid medical malpractice case if you have the following four components present in your complaint. These are the major things your lawyer will look for when figuring out whether or not your complaint is valid:
• A relationship between the doctor and patient exists: First, it should be clear that you have a doctor-patient relationship with the healthcare professional you’re implicating an accusation for injury. Thus, you must establish facts that you sought medical treatment from that doctor, and that person agreed to attend to you.
• Doctor was unconcerned: After confirming your doctor-patient relationship, your lawyer will try to establish the fact that it’s the negligence and unconcerned behavior of the doctor that caused your injury and misfortune. That’s why you should have proof showing the wrong treatment of your doctor, and that it directly affected you through injury.
Although you don’t expect your doctor’s concern to be the best, good doctors should always apply logical skills and careful treatment when attending to their patients. Hence, you should engage the help you received from other doctors to vouch for the standard of medical care, and how that doctor differed from that standard of medical care in your case.
• Negligence of the doctor led to your injury: The third is negligence on the part of the doctor. Thus, you must establish the fact that it was the negligence of that doctor that caused your injury. Hence, you should demonstrate how the wrong treatment affected you. There’s no need to present clear proof.
• Injury resulted in certain damages: Most importantly, you should prove that the injury caused has led to certain damages. This is an important element when filing a claim for medical malpractice. Even if you have the three elements present, you can’t have a valid claim for medical malpractice if you fail to show that the injury caused certain damages. You can characterize damages by emotional suffering, physical pain, lost earnings, medical costs, or even death.
4. Filing A Medical Malpractice Case
If you have all the elements above, then you can file medical malpractice. However, all states impose specific deadlines when filing personal injury cases.
The medical malpractice rules of limitations are complicated since most states have made a three- or four-part rule of limitations for such cases. This is the reason why you should immediately consult with a lawyer.
5. The Standard Deadline
With such, the standard deadline is generally between two to six years after the occurrence of medical malpractice. This means that if you fail to file a case within this timeline, you lose the right to file a complaint against the healthcare professional.
Conclusion
Medical malpractices are some of the factors for people’s death and suffering. Thus, it’s wise that you secure yourself against these misfortunes by understanding medical malpractices themselves. You should also know how to react to these scenarios.
If you think you’re a victim of such malpractice, thoroughly assess your situation and file a case before the deadline lapse. You have the right to protect, and the state understands that. Seek the help of a good lawyer, and they’ll guide you with the process. Gather your facts, and you can win your case.