Six Common Types of Medical Malpractice, Misdiagnosis. Many cases of malpractice qualify as misdiagnosis. This form of malpractice is similar to a misdiagnosis. Misdiagnoses are among the most common types of medical malpractice in medical malpractice lawsuits.
A misdiagnosis occurs when a doctor fails to diagnose a patient's condition and instead diagnoses the patient with the wrong condition or states that they have no type of medical condition. Late diagnoses are often related to misdiagnoses. In malpractice cases involving late diagnoses, the doctor initially misdiagnoses the patient with a different condition or states that he or she does not have a medical condition. Eventually, the patient receives an accurate diagnosis, but the delay causes the patient's condition to worsen due to the lack of adequate treatment.
Welcoming a new baby into the world is one of many people's most cherished experiences. When labor and delivery personnel are negligent and cause birth injuries, the experience and its aftermath can be especially devastating. While expectant parents can plan for many things related to the birth of a new child, they cannot plan ahead for a birth injury caused by medical malpractice. In some situations, birth injuries can result in the death of a mother or baby.
In many cases, birth injuries can cause a baby to need lifelong care, resulting in millions of dollars in losses. Some cases involve defective medical devices that cause serious injury. When a medical device is defective, the patient receiving it can suffer serious injury or death. For example, some patients may suffer organ perforations due to poorly designed medical devices.
In other cases, the patient's condition may worsen when a faulty device fails to provide the promised benefits. In many cases, patients can be injured by defective medical devices before defects are discovered. However, if the manufacturer should have known or known about the defect, the manufacturer may be responsible for paying for the damages. Sometimes, a doctor doesn't recognize or diagnose a condition when a competent doctor would have detected it.
This misdiagnosis can cause the condition to progress to a more advanced stage, which may require more significant treatment and cause the patient greater pain and suffering. In the case of a serious condition, such as cancer, an inaccurate or delayed diagnosis can result in the patient's death. A plaintiff filing this type of lawsuit would need to submit expert testimony from a doctor who can explain why a competent doctor treating a similar patient would have correctly diagnosed the condition or diagnosed it earlier. An expert would also need to explain the effect of the error or delay on the patient's health.
Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals may be responsible for an error in prescribing or supplying medications. The doctor will likely be liable if an error occurs during the prescribing process, while the nurse and the hospital that employs them will likely be responsible for an error during administration. Sometimes prescribing errors are related to misdiagnosis, as a doctor may prescribe medication for an incorrectly diagnosed condition. In other cases, the doctor may prescribe the wrong amount of medication, or a nurse may give the wrong amount.
A nurse can also confuse patients and administer medications to a patient that were intended for another patient. Or hospital equipment may be defective and administer an inadequate dose. Gynecologists, obstetricians, and other medical professionals involved in the delivery process can cause lifelong harm to newborns by not meeting the professional standard of care. Conditions that can result from malpractice (but often have innocent causes) include cerebral palsy, paralysis, nerve damage, developmental disorders and fractures, among others.
Sometimes, improper treatment or care before delivery can cause harm to mother and child. For example, a birth injury may involve a failure to diagnose a medical condition or birth defect. In other situations, birth injuries may be due to errors during the delivery process. A doctor may not order a cesarean section when needed, may not handle complications competently, or may not properly use equipment such as forceps.
Negligence in prescribing and administering medications forms the basis of many medical malpractice actions. Doctors may prescribe the wrong medication, dosage, or administration instructions. In other cases, the pharmacist may be at fault for sending the patient home with the wrong medication or instructions. In that case, the pharmacist is liable if the doctor's prescription did not cause harm to the patient.
Each year, more than 250,000 people in the United States die as a result of various types of medical malpractice. This makes medical errors the third leading cause of death in the country, behind cancer and heart disease. In addition, since negligence is not usually documented in death certificates, experts believe that this is a conservative estimate. Failure to Diagnose a Serious Condition Many types of medical malpractice involve surgical errors.
These errors can range from operating on the wrong patient or body part to not providing adequate post-surgical care. In addition, unsanitary conditions can cause serious illnesses and infections. Because many malpractice cases involve patients who were already sick or injured, the question often arises as to whether what the doctor did, negligent or not, actually caused the damage. For example, if a patient dies after treatment for lung cancer and the doctor did something negligent, it could be difficult to prove that the doctor's negligence caused the death instead of the cancer.
The patient must show that the physician's incompetence is more likely to have directly caused the injury. Usually, the patient must have a medical expert testify that the doctor's negligence caused the injury. A misdiagnosis is a lack of proper diagnosis of a disease. This is a common medical error.
The most commonly misdiagnosed conditions are heart attack and cancer. Among other things, misdiagnosis occurs when a doctor doesn't recognize a condition or orders more tests to diagnose a condition. This error occurs when the doctor correctly diagnoses a condition, but then fails to treat it according to the acceptable standard of care. Discharging a patient too soon or failing to provide adequate follow-up care, which can worsen conditions and lead to injury, is considered a lack of treatment.
A high percentage of medical malpractice lawsuits are against obstetricians and gynecologists for medical errors related to childbirth. Conditions such as spinal cord injuries, shoulder dystocia, cerebral palsy and others are common injuries during labor that could have been caused by medical errors. Poor prenatal care and lack of recognition of fetal distress are also included in birth injuries. Nearly every state requires the patient to present a medical expert to discuss the appropriate standard of care and show how the defendant deviated from that standard.
Be sure to speak with an experienced medical malpractice lawyer about your medical malpractice injuries, as time is limited to file a lawsuit against the negligent professional, hospital, or other facility involved in your case. New Jersey Medical Malpractice Lawyers Helping Injured Victims of Wrong Site Surgery Wrong site surgery can occur when a surgeon operates on the wrong side of the body, the wrong part of the body, the wrong patient, or on the right side at the wrong level. Inattention or incompetence in the use of medical devices, such as scanners, ventilators and monitors, can also result in serious injury when medical personnel use contaminated or defective tools or equipment and infect a patient. Fortunately, you can call the dedicated medical malpractice attorneys at Fronzuto Law Group for help.
State medical malpractice rules vary from when you should file your lawsuit to whether you should notify the doctor in advance. But there are some general principles and broad categories of rules that apply to most medical malpractice cases. In addition, screening for genetic defects that doctors do not offer to patients at risk because of their medical history can support a malpractice lawsuit when a baby is born with a severely debilitating congenital condition. Review panel findings can be filed in court, and courts often rely on a review panel's finding that there is no medical malpractice to dismiss a case before it goes to trial.
If a competent physician had discovered the patient's illness or made a different diagnosis, which in turn would have led to a better outcome than what was actually achieved, then the patient may have a viable medical malpractice lawsuit. Medical professionals can make mistakes when prescribing the wrong medication or providing incorrect dosage instructions. Whether the doctor was reasonably skilled and careful is often the basis of a medical malpractice lawsuit. Just because you're not satisfied with your treatment or the results doesn't mean the doctor is responsible for medical malpractice.
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