Medical malpractice occurs when a doctor or any other healthcare professional breaches their duty of care to a patient and that breach results in injury or death. Fortunately, these cases happen on fairly rare occasions; but when they do occur, they can have devastating consequences. Like many others, you may wonder what type of treatments might be the cause for medical malpractice.
Medical malpractice occurs when a doctor or any other healthcare professional breaches their duty of care to a patient and that breach results in injury or death. Fortunately, these cases happen on fairly rare occasions; but when they do occur, they can have devastating consequences. Like many others, you may wonder what type of treatments might be the cause for medical malpractice.
Misdiagnosis
Delayed or missed diagnoses are major causes of malpractice lawsuits. When a doctor fails to diagnose a condition for a while or misdiagnoses a condition, it could result in the patient missing treatments that might have prevented serious harm or death. A misdiagnosis could also result in the prescription of inappropriate treatments, also potentially leading to harm.
The key to such a case is providing evidence of what the doctor did wrong and showing how a competent physician should have diagnosed the condition. The treating doctor may be liable for malpractice if you can show that a reasonably competent and skillful doctor would not have made the same error under the same circumstances.
Medication Errors
This is one of the most common types of medical malpractice and it can take place in several ways. For example, there might be a mistake on the initial prescription made by the doctor or it could be that a drug was administered incorrectly or inappropriately. Also, the doctor might fail to notice a potentially dangerous drug interaction. In a hospital setting, giving the wrong patient the wrong medication is a common cause of injury or harm.
Anesthesia Errors
These occur relatively infrequently, but when they do, they can be more dangerous than errors made in surgery. When the anesthesiologist makes even the smallest mistake, it can lead to brain damage, permanent injury, or death. Typical malpractice cases caused by anesthesiologists include not investigating the patient’s medical history for possible complications or not informing the patient of necessary preoperative procedures, e.g. not eating for a certain period before surgery.
Other common anesthesia errors include giving the patient too much anesthesia, failure to monitor the vital signs of the patient, failure to put a tube properly in the patient’s trachea to assist with breathing and the use of defective equipment.
Surgery Errors
A surgeon might occasionally make an error in the operating room. They might make negligent errors while performing the surgery itself, such as puncturing a blood vessel or an organ, leaving surgical equipment inside the body or operating on the wrong part of the body. Alternatively, there could be negligence by nursing staff in postoperative care, resulting in using improper procedures that could lead to infection, giving the wrong medications or giving the patient inadequate or improper instructions required for the patient to recover post surgery.
It is important to keep in mind that not every situation in which a person is dissatisfied with a doctor or any healthcare professional amounts to medical malpractice. It is a smart move to consult with a legal representative before moving forward with a medical malpractice claim to determine whether you have a viable cause of action and also so that you get help finding the experts required to prove your case as well as navigating the legal process in general.
If you believe that you or a loved one has been a victim of medical malpractice, you should contact a New York attorney at Rosenberg, Minc, Falloff, & Wolff of RMFW Law at 212-344-1000. You can discuss the steps required to file a medical malpractice claim free of charge – the first consultation is free.
We know this arena. We know a winning case when we see one. We have won millions of dollars for clients in the past and you too could be on this righteous list.
