When someone feels ill and they seek medical attention, they expect to receive proper care. Incredibly, though, many people in this situation end up worse off than when they started. Negligent practices on the part of doctors, nurses, and health care facilities are frequently the cause of death and serious injury in Pennsylvania.
If you’ve been the victim of medical malpractice, or a member of your family has, you may be entitled to compensation.
Medical malpractice occurs when a hospital, doctor, nurse, or other medical professional causes harm to the patient through negligence. Pennsylvania law regards medical malpractice as having taken place when:
Doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals have a wide range of responsibilities when it comes to their patients, and a failure to uphold almost any of these can amount to malpractice under the right circumstances. However, there are certain types of medical malpractice that are especially common.
A diagnosis error can lead to delayed medical treatment, incorrect treatment, or even no treatment at all. These are potentially catastrophic outcomes, particularly for patients with illnesses or injuries for which early intervention is a crucial determinant of success in recovery.
Studies have shown that misdiagnosis is endemic in the American health care system. A 2022 paper from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, focusing on misdiagnosis in emergency rooms specifically, found that 7.4 million diagnostic errors are made in emergency rooms nationally every year, with 2.6 million people suffering preventable harm as a result. Of these, 370,000 lose their lives or are permanently disabled.
The most commonly misdiagnosed conditions are stroke, myocardial infarction, and aortic aneurysm or dissection.
Common surgical errors include unnecessary procedures, operations on the wrong site, and failure to remove all surgical materials (such as sponge and gauze) from inside a patient’s body after an operation. Some surgical errors may result from the use of faulty devices; in cases like this, the manufacturer of the device in question may be liable.
Every case involving a surgical error is different, and it may be difficult to prove the causal relationship between a surgeon’s mistake and a degradation in your condition if you were already unwell. To learn more about your specific situation, you’ll have to consult with a lawyer.
There are a number of ways in which patients can end up taking the wrong medication, or the wrong dose of a prescribed medication. These include:
A medication error is potentially harmful on two fronts. First, you’re not receiving the treatment you’re supposed to get, so your condition may be getting worse as a result. Second, you might be taking potentially harmful medication for no reason, thereby exposing yourself to excess risk unnecessarily.
Childbirth is a delicate medical process, and errors can have lasting implications for both the mother and the child. Common childbirth injuries that may arise due to malpractice include:
Potentially negligent acts and omissions by doctors and nurses during childbirth include the failure to order a C-section in a timely fashion, the failure to properly monitor a mother or child’s vital signs, and the improper use of birthing equipment. However, every case is different (particularly when it comes to difficult births), so you’ll have to discuss the details of your case with a lawyer to ascertain for sure whether you’ve been the victim of malpractice or not.
Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) most commonly occur in health care facilities that fail to stick to strict hygiene and sterilization practices. These practices include regular hand washing, sterilization of medical devices, and cleaning of rooms; all these failures can amount to negligence on a hospital’s part.
Common hospital-acquired infections include:
To succeed in a medical malpractice claim, you must be able to show that your health care provider was negligent. There are a few required elements to this.
Medical professionals are bound to a "standard of care," which means they must provide care that a reasonably competent doctor or nurse in the same discipline would have provided under the circumstances. You must be able to demonstrate that this standard was breached. Expert testimony often plays a vital role in establishing the standard of care and explaining how the defendant deviated from it.
However, merely identifying a mistake isn't enough; there must be a clear link between the defendant’s negligence and the injury you suffered. This is known as causation. This can be particularly challenging, especially if you had an existing condition at the time of the alleged malpractice.
In terms of the evidence our medical malpractice lawyers use to achieve these ends, medical records and expert testimony are frequently crucial.
Pennsylvania imposes fewer limitations on medical malpractice damages than many other states. There is no cap on compensatory damages (damages that cover the economic and noneconomic harms you suffer as a result of your condition).
The state does place a cap on punitive damages in these cases. Punitive damages are meant to punish the defendant for particularly egregious conduct and to deter others from similar behavior in the future. Punitive damages cannot exceed 200% of the compensatory damages awarded; so, if your economic and noneconomic damages amount to $150,000, you won’t be entitled to more than $300,000 in punitive damages.
Twenty-five percent of every punitive damage award is directed to the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error (MCARE) Fund, a state-run fund set up to compensate victims of medical negligence.
If you have been injured or have lost a loved one due to medical malpractice, contact The Cochran Firm Philadelphia today. Our medical malpractice attorneys have valuable experience and a proven record of getting justice for victims of medical malpractice. Call us at 1(800) 969-4400 for a free initial consultation.
