What is Medical Malpractice?

Medical Malpractice is when a hospital, doctor or other health care professional causes injury to a patient through negligence. The cause of negligence can be errors in diagnosis, treatment, aftercare or health management. If you feel that you received careless treatment at the hands of a medical professional or hospital, you may have a case for medical malpractice. However, there are a few requirements that must be met for the claim to classify as medical malpractice. The requirements are as follows:

Failure to Meet the “Standard of Care”

By law, there are certain medical standards that are recognized as being acceptable medical treatment, this is known as the standard of care. If your health care provider failed to meet the standard of care, negligence may have been a factor.

Injury Caused by Negligence

If you are looking to make a case for medical malpractice, failure to meet the standard of care is not sufficient to make a case. You must also be able to prove that you suffered an injury due to their negligence. If you did not suffer an injury, or if the injury was not caused by negligence, you do not have a case.

You Suffered Significant Damage from Injury

Since medical malpractice usually requires testimonies from medical experts, significant damage from injury must be exhibited. If there was minimal damage caused by negligence, the case may not be worth pursuing because medical malpractice cases are expensive to litigate. To classify as serious damage, the injury must result in disability, loss of income, unusual pain, suffering and hardship, or significant past and future medical bills.

Common Types of Medical Malpractice

Now that you know what requirements must be met to have a case for medical malpractice, let’s take a look at a few potential outcomes resulting from negligence:

• Failure to diagnose or misdiagnoses
• Surgical errors
• Wrong medication or dosage
• Early discharge
• Failure to recognize symptoms
• Child Birth Errors

If you feel that you have been a victim to medical negligence of any kind, contact the Spector Law Group. We want to make sure you are granted justice for the improper medical care that you received. Call us toll free at 888-498-8180 so we can get started!