Typical Healthcare Mistakes Liable to Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Medical malpractice is when a healthcare worker commits mistakes that have grave consequences on your health due to negligence. When healthcare workers commit an error due to negligence, they have failed to provide standard medical care, which can lead to lawsuits against them.

However, you should know that medical malpractice is not the same as failure to meet treatment expectations. A treatment may leave you unhappy with the outcome or the outcome of a treatment not resulting as expected. It is not the same as medical malpractice. 

To qualify as medical malpractice, you must not prove that the doctors failed to provide standard care because of their negligence. You must also prove that the treatment process caused you grave health harm.

An outlier was during the COVID-19. To protect doctors from medical malpractice lawsuits, the government passed a law that shielded doctors from medical malpractice lawsuits when caring for a COVID-19 patient. However, intoxicated doctors did not receive this immunity.

Five medical errors commonly lead to medical malpractice lawsuits in the United States. These errors include misdiagnosis or not diagnosing a patient on time due to negligence, negligently not providing treatment, errors in prescribing the appropriate medications, errors before, during, and after childbirth, errors during surgery, and errors with anesthesia administration.

Failure to Diagnose in Time or Misdiagnose

Delayed diagnosis or failure to diagnose or misdiagnosis can have catastrophic effects on your heart. When it results from negligence and not an attempt to find a solution to a unique medical problem, the physician is liable for lawsuits. 

How do you know if it is a result of negligence? What you should do is do a comparison of how the physician provided care for others with how they attended to you. You should also compare how they provided care with how other doctors (especially those with the same specialty) cared for their patients.

If, after comparison, you find that they need to improve in some areas of care, they do not meet the medical standard. It makes them liable to a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Failure to Provide Treatment

A doctor who negligently treats a patient is liable for a malpractice lawsuit. That is because failure to treat may seriously harm the patient and may lead to death.

As with failure to diagnose or a misdiagnosis, you need to prove that the doctor's failure to provide treatment did not meet the medical standard of care. More so, you must prove that this action caused the patient harm and affected their general well-being.

There are different scenarios that the law considers a failure to provide a medical standard of care. When a doctor fails to treat a patient because they do not have medical insurance, this falls under negligence.

Further, a doctor's failure to refer a patient to a specialist when the situation calls for one or discharge a patient without administering proper tests and evaluation falls below the medical standard of care. Stopping a treatment mid-way without conducting appropriate tests also falls below the medical standard of care.

Error in Medical Prescription

Medical prescription error occurs when a doctor prescribes the wrong drug to a patient. Medication prescription errors also include when a doctor prescribes the wrong dosage. Medication error may occur when a nurse administers a wrong dosage against the doctor’s right prescription.

“A medical prescription error can lead to severe harm and even death of a patient,” says medical malpractice attorney John H. Fisher of The New York Injury & Malpractice Law Firm, P.C.

Childbirth Errors

Error before, during, or after childbirth may lead to serious health complications. The mother may lose vital organs or die, and the child may become deformed at birth.

Childbirth errors may occur during ante-natal treatment, natal treatment, or postnatal treatment. For example, failure to provide treatment during pregnancy due to negligence may result in medical complications during childbirth. 

However, it is essential to note that not all childbirth complications are a result of medical malpractice. Also, factors other than medical malpractice may cause a child to have a grave medical condition.

Surgical Errors

Surgical errors occur when a doctor makes a mistake in the operating room due to negligence. Typical cases of surgical errors include leaving medical equipment in a patient, puncturing a patient's healthy organ, or operating on the wrong body part.

Further, postoperative care also falls under surgical errors. That is because negligence in performing postoperative care may also lead to serious harm. 

Anesthesia Administration Errors

Anesthesia administration error occurs when an anesthesiologist administers the wrong anesthesia or dosage. It may lead to brain damage, serious health complications during surgery, and even death. 

Using a faulty instrument to administer anesthesia also falls under medical malpractice. That is because if the anaesthesiologist had diligently checked the instruments, they would have known it was faulty.

Are Hospitals Liable to Lawsuits?

Most people have always wondered if they must only sue the physician in charge of their case or the hospital. You may sue a hospital if the healthcare worker is a contracted employee. However, the hospital is not liable to a lawsuit if the healthcare worker is an independent consultant.

Should I Get an Attorney?

Handling a medical malpractice case alone is something you should not do. There are many nuances to a medical malpractice lawsuit, and you may require a lawyer who is knowledgeable in that area to get the compensation you deserve.

More so, when you are a victim of medical malpractice, you may have pain that may prevent you from handling the stress and rigors that come with handling a lawsuit. You should keep all medical records, note everything you remember, and note how the error has affected you.

Hiring a lawyer who investigates further and employs medical consultants to look into your case and see your chances is best.