Medical Malpractice Overview
What is medical malpractice? Any type of inappropriate, ill-timed or negligent performance, diagnosis or treatment by any medical profession is medical malpractice. The sad fact is that anywhere from about 45 thousand to 100 thousand of patients die due to a medical mistake. There are quite a few ways medical malpractice can occur including:
• Misdiagnosis;
• Failure to follow up;
• Surgical mistakes and more.
Misdiagnosis
An example of medical malpractice is misdiagnosis, which is when a medical profession assesses that a certain set of symptoms is one disease but is actually another. The reality of misdiagnosis is that it can be fatal in a case where the actual disease is life threatening, but the patient was treated for something else. A good example of this is if a professional diagnosis a patient with stomach pain and diarrhea with a virus but it is actually cancer of the colon. Unfortunately, misdiagnosis is one of the main causes of death in the U.S.
Failure to Follow Up with Treatment
Physicians see patients on a daily basis and remembering to follow up with each one can be difficult under a high case load. However, this is not an excuse given the fact that the patient’s life can be affected tremendously due to their error. There are cases where patients are put on a treatment plan that was not effective or the proper course. For example, a man has too much iron in his blood and the doctor had him on weekly blood removal treatments. However, his failure to follow up caused a critical error because the patient’s immune system had been compromised leading to chronic sickness.
Surgical Mistakes
Do surgical mistakes really happen? The answer is yes. Any surgery has risks and there is always the possibility of a mistake at any given time. For example, a patient goes in to have a gall bladder removed and the surgeon accidentally clips the bile duct, causing the patient to turn yellow due to jaundice. This error will result in another surgery, more risk, and higher expenses.
What Can You Do?
In order to get compensated or reimbursed for medical malpractice, you will need to file a medical malpractice lawsuit against the treating physician or hospital liable for the malpractice. Unfortunately, a major drawback to this is that these suits can be complex and costly to indict. Therefore, you will need to discuss your case with a lawyer specializing in this matter. You will need to establish your options and either go to court or settle with the other party.
Additional Legal Site: Medical Malpractice Lawyers The Barber Law Firm. Serving throughout Texas.
