Medical Malpractice

Doctors, nurses, hospitals, nursing homes, testing facilities, and other healthcare providers strive to do their best, but they’re not perfect. The unfortunate truth is that medical errors cause more injuries and deaths each year than car accidents.

Medical malpractice occurs when a doctor, hospital, or other healthcare provider fails to provide the standard of care expected by a reasonably competent member of the medical community in the same specialty, when providing treatment to a similar patient in similar circumstances, causing the patient to suffer pain, injury, or even death.

Medical malpractice claims generally result from specific types of incompetence or inaction by a healthcare provider. The three most common types of medical malpractice claims are as follows:

• Misdiagnosis or Failure to Diagnose
  This occurs when a doctor misdiagnoses or fails to diagnose an illness that a competent doctor would have diagnosed promptly and correctly, which could have led to better patient results or could have prevented undue harm, injury, or death to a patient. When a doctor acts in this manner, and a patient is injured or loses their life as a result of the doctor’s actions or inactions, the doctor may be liable for committing medical malpractice.
• Improper Procedure, Performance of a Procedure, or Treatment of an Illness
  This occurs when a doctor performs an improper procedure, improperly performs a procedure, or improperly treats an illness, resulting in undue harm, injury, or death to a patient; whereas a doctor providing the appropriate standard of care would have selected an alternate procedure, performed the procedure to the appropriate standard of care, or treated the illness with a higher level of competency, potentially leading to better patient results or preventing undue harm, injury, or death to the patient. When a doctor acts in this manner, and a patient is injured or loses their life as a result of the doctor’s actions or inactions, the doctor may be liable for committing medical malpractice.
• Failure to Communicate Risks Involved
  A doctor is responsible for communicating all known risks to a patient that the patient may endure when undergoing a procedure or treatment. When a doctor fails to inform a patient of those risks, and a patient is injured or loses their life as a result of the doctor’s failure to communicate, the doctor may be liable for committing medical malpractice.

A doctor’s decisions and actions should always be reasonably skillful and careful. Those decisions and actions should always meet or exceed the standard of care expected by a similarly situated patient being treated by a similarly situated doctor because when medical malpractice exists, a patient can suffer considerable lifelong medical bills, pain, suffering, injury, loss of income, or even death.