Treatment for a serious illness is among the most difficult things a person can face. Every year in the U.S., millions of people visit physicians to address health concerns they’re battling.
But what happens when that person makes a mistake, or provides us with the wrong advice? Thousands of Americans are forced to file medical malpractice lawsuits each year due to surgical mishaps, misdiagnoses, and other preventable issues.
If you believe that you’ve been the victim of medical malpractice, don’t hesitate to seek help. Consult with an attorney regarding your case as soon as possible.
According to the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys (ABPLA), medical malpractice occurs when “a hospital, doctor or other health care professional, through a negligent act or omission, causes an injury to a patient.”
Medical malpractice cases can take numerous different forms.
Every year, news outlets publish reports of patients discovering that a surgical sponge was left inside them during a procedure, that their surgeon mistakenly performed an operation on their right leg rather than their left, or that a surgeon operated on the wrong patient altogether.
While stories like these can sound hard to believe, they’re actually relatively common.
Herlinda Garcia was in the news frequently back in 2013, having fallen victim to an extreme misdiagnosis. According to CBS News, her doctor had “misread her results” as indicating that she had Stage IV breast cancer. She underwent eight rounds of chemotherapy over the course of seven months, before an appointment with another doctor revealed that the diagnosis was mistaken. Garcia was awarded $367,500 for physical pain and mental anguish.
Anesthesia allows patients to undergo invasive surgery without feeling pain. When anesthesia is improperly administered, though, patients can end up undergoing horrific distress during procedures.
Anesthesia awareness is perhaps the most extreme form of this. In 2007, NBC News published this article about Sherman Sizemore, a 73-year-old Baptist minister who was awake during surgery but unable to move or alert medical staff that he was conscious. It later emerged that a nurse anesthetist and an anesthesiologist had given him “paralyzing drugs” to prevent muscle movements during his procedure, but failed to give him general anesthesia at the right time.
Sizemore was left with severe psychological issues following the operation, problems which eventually led him to take his own life. His family later filed a lawsuit.
This isn’t the only type of medical negligence case that can arise from the misapplication of anesthesia. Other potential issues include:
Birth injuries can arise for various reasons, including:
Please note, however, that not all unfavorable medical outcomes occur because of medical malpractice. There are various criteria that must be satisfied in order for a finding of medical malpractice to be reached.
We’ve looked at each of the necessary elements of medical malpractice in some detail here:
When deciding whether a doctor-patient relationship existed in your case, the court will ask questions like:
In many cases, a doctor-patient relationship is fairly straightforward to establish. This is especially true if you went to a hospital and have records stating that the physician in question was your doctor of record.
On the other hand, though, cases in which the doctor-patient relationship is more informal can be a lot more complicated.
Medical negligence occurs when a doctor causes a patient harm when a competent doctor would not have made the same misstep under the same conditions.
During the legal process, our attorneys work with medical experts to give their opinion regarding the appropriate standard of care as it relates to your case.
This part of the equation varies depending on the type of case. For example, cancer and other diseases can muddy a case significantly. Was it the doctor’s negligence or the disease that caused the injury or death?
Once again, this is one of the reasons why an experienced medical malpractice attorney is essential to your case. A Cochran Firm Philadelphia attorney can help you decide whether or not your experience might indicate some kind of negligence was at play.
This point is something you might find in other personal injury cases as well as medical malpractice cases. Did the doctor’s negligence result in any specific damages to the patient? Keep in mind that damages can be more than medical bills or physical harm. For example, in some cases, a patient might attempt to sue for mental anguish with the help of an experienced personal injury lawyer.
When it comes to personal injury disputes, including medical malpractice cases, victims must begin filing a lawsuit within the time frame outlined by the relevant statute of limitations. The exact time frame allowed does vary by state and type of dispute, but the deadline is generally two years after the date of injury in Pennsylvania.
This may seem like a lot of time, but it’s really not. During that time frame, you’ll need to hire a lawyer, explain your case, collect evidence, and possibly file a lawsuit. Plus, the longer you wait to get started, the more difficult it will be to build a winning case. Two years can come and go very quickly, which is why it’s always best to see an attorney as soon as possible.
In the seminal Institute of Medicine paper “To Err is Human,” the authors stated that “as many as 98,000 people die in any given year from medical errors.” This statistic has since been widely used by the media, often in news reports criticizing the medical industry.
More recently, however, we’ve had a rise in reports citing numbers even more astronomically high. For example, Johns Hopkins published an article saying that the true number may be “more than 250,000 deaths per year.”
We understand that legal cases can be daunting, so we do all we can to make you feel as comfortable as possible. Simply call 800-969-4400 or visit our contact page to schedule your free consultation with one of our attorneys.
