Common Causes of Malpractice Suits
Doctors are trusted members of society and they take an oath to do no harm when they treat their patients. They also have a legal duty to provide you with a certain standard of care. When they fall short of that duty the consequences can be dire. These mistakes and eros can easily cost someone their life. When this happens it is considered medical malpractice.
If you have suffered harm at the hands of a physician or another medical professional then you have the right to seek compensation for damages related to your injuries. There is also a vast list of what causes medical malpractice and we’ve put together a list of the most common types.
Causes of Malpractice
It is important to note that just because you are unhappy with a doctor, doesn’t mean you have a malpractice claim.
Misdiagnosis
The foundation of medicine and patient care is the diagnosis, and it is also one of the most common types of medical error there. About 12 million people suffer from a misdiagnosis of some type across the United States each year. These errors include a wide range of missed opportunities to make the right diagnosis in a timely fashion. In order for it to be malpractice, the physician might miss a diagnosis, provide the wrong diagnosis, or take too long to diagnose the correct condition, which can lead to injury, illness, or death from inappropriate tests and treatments.
Childbirth Injuries
Bringing a child into the world is supposed to be a joyous time but preventable childbirth injuries quickly ruin that. These injuries can cause a wide array of issues. Here are some of the ways that a childbirth injury can occur:
- Poor prenatal care, including failure to perform proper tests during pregnancy
- Failing to recognize or treat a distressed fetus
- Importer administration of pregnancy-related medications
- Failure to perform a necessary c-section
- Improper use of forceps, vacuums, and other birthing tools
- Waiting too long to cut the umbilical cord or cutting it too soon.
Medication Errors
Medication errors used to be the result of the doctor’s notorious, illegible handwriting and the pharmacist’s inability to decipher it correctly. Today the vast majority of prescriptions are entered into a computer and submitted online to a pharmacy. This doesn’t prevent medication errors from happening as staff can still mistype letters or numbers and input the wrong information.
Medication errors can also happen if a physician does not get a complete patient history or fails to review a patient’s history before writing a new prescription. Some medications don’t interact well, or the patient may be allergic, and if the physician doesn’t take the utmost care this can lead to severe injuries or death.
We understand that medical malpractice is a deeply personal and hard thing to go through, and that is why talking to a medical malpractice lawyer like our friends at Dispartie Law Group, is a great way to help you get the composition you need.
