Working in the medical field is a very noble calling that requires people to undertake a duty of care for their patients. Unfortunately, occurrences of individuals using their positions to harm patients or perform their duty with negligent mistakes, which is cause for a medical malpractice lawsuit.
If that sounds familiar, you could be a victim of medical malpractice, and you should seek the counsel of a dedicated medical malpractice attorney to discuss your options to hold the liable parties accountable for their negligence.
Let’s look at some instances that are
What Instances Constitute Medical Malpractice?
1. Misdiagnosis
Misdiagnosis constitutes missing, delayed, or incorrectly labeling injuries or illnesses. This is the most common error that causes patients to sue medical professionals. It is assumed that because a doctor was trained that they are knowledgeable on a patient’s injuries and illnesses.
When a doctor misses the diagnosis on a patient, the patient’s problem may go untreated, ultimately causing the situation to escalate. If the doctor incorrectly diagnoses an illness, the wrong treatment can be administered, which often makes the problem worse. In some cases, doctors can recommend unnecessary surgeries and costly medications.
Missed and incorrect diagnosis leads to delayed diagnosis, which could be too late in some cases, e.g., cancer, heart attacks, etc.
2. Hospital Infection
Hospitals are full of disease-causing bacteria and viruses because of the number of sick people coming into the hospital. Hospital-Acquired Infections spread very fast among patients and often go unnoticed because no one knows to look for them. Medical personnel must maintain cleanliness and protocols provided by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Common HAIs that patients contract from hospitals include blood infections, urinary tract infections, respiratory infections, surgical site infections, etc.
3. Childbirth Complications
Pregnant women are often at risk of contracting HIAs because they must visit the hospital frequently for checkups. The medical personnel attending to them should closely monitor their condition and that of the unborn child to prevent preventable issues.
During delivery, the mother’s progress should be monitored so that emergency surgery can be planned to prevent putting the mother and child at risk. Negligence can cause avoidable injuries such as fistula and, in extreme cases, the death of the child, mother, or both.
If a child was injured during or after birth, there are lifelong consequences, such as paralysis, seizures, cerebral palsy, and physical injuries, that can affect their entire future.
4. Mistakes During Surgery
General surgeons are most likely to be slapped with medical malpractice lawsuits, according to statistics. Common mistakes they can make during surgery include operating on the wrong part of the body, leaving foreign objects like tools, gauze, or cotton wool in the body, and puncturing healthy organs. Errors like administering wrong anesthesia doses can also cause devastating problems, such as brain damage.
These mistakes require additional surgery to correct, which is risky for the patient if detected early. In more unfortunate cases, these mistakes are discovered a long time after the surgery has taken place and the patient has been living in pain for a long time.
5. Wrong Medications
The prescription of wrong doses of medication to patients is often the result of misdiagnosis. There may be several people to blame for medication errors. Failure of the doctor to check the patient’s medical history, failure by the pharmacy to fill the right prescription, and wrong dosages administered to patients by nurses.
Hire a Medical Malpractice Lawyer
Since multiple instances qualify as medical malpractice, you might want to talk to a professional who has experience dealing with these complex cases. They can guide you through each step of the process, from examining the details of your case, to gathering evidence, and even negotiating a settlement on your behalf.
