Types of Medical Malpractice
Failure to Diagnose and Misdiagnosis
Doctors have a duty to evaluate patients thoroughly and carefully. When conditions are correctly diagnosed, patients have options to pursue proper treatment. If a patient’s condition is not correctly detected or evaluated, though, that patient can suffer. A failure to diagnose or a misdiagnosis of a harmful condition can cause that condition to develop unchecked. Conversely, misdiagnosing a patient with a condition they do not suffer can lead that patient to seek unnecessary treatment that could harm them. The most commonly misdiagnosed diseases include Cancer, Heart Attacks, and Infections.
Birth Injuries
The birthing process is inherently traumatic. However, neither the baby nor the mother should sustain unreasonable injury or illness due to this process. If your baby was cut, had oxygen deprivation, suffered from dislocated joints, diagnosed with Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE), or otherwise was harmed due to the birthing process, it is important to question whether you may have a legal cause of action against your health providers.
Surgical Errors
Surgical errors can range from operating on the wrong body part to leaving a medical tool inside a patient’s body and from administering anesthesia improperly to failing to protect a surgical patient from infection. Surgical errors are frighteningly common. If you have suffered physical pain to an unexpected degree in the wake of a surgical procedure, you may benefit from exploring your legal options.
Medication Errors
Prescribing, dosing, and administering medication are surprisingly complex tasks that can all go wrong. Sometimes, patients are harmed by the medications themselves. Under these circumstances, a drug manufacturer may be sued via a personal injury lawsuit. Medical professionals can be responsible if a medication was improperly prescribed or if a provider failed to check for the potential of harmful drug interactions, for example. Sometimes a dosing error might be made, or improper protocols followed during medication administration, causing harm to a patient. In such cases, there may be grounds for a medical malpractice claim.