Getting proper healthcare is part of remaining healthy and ensuring overall well-being. We visit doctors and other healthcare professionals when we do not feel well, expecting they will diagnose us and provide interventions such as medication, therapy, or surgery that could help.
We trust we will leave their offices better than we came in, but that is not always the case. Doctors make mistakes, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not.
What is Medical Malpractice?
Medical malpractice is a situation where a healthcare institution or professional’s actions or omissions deviate from the expected standard of care, resulting in harm, injury, or other damage to the patient.
This legal concept is crucial for ensuring accountability in the healthcare system, ensuring both patient safety and better outcomes.
You are within your rights to sue and seek compensation if you are injured or have other damages resulting from medical malpractice. You can contact the best Chicago medical malpractice lawyers to get the compensation you deserve and hold the individuals or entities involved responsible.
Elements of Medical Malpractice
If you want to sue for medical malpractice, you must prove specific things. What you need to prove is included under the elements of medical malpractice.
The first element is duty of care. Duty of care is a legal concept where an individual is responsible for maintaining and ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of others. It requires that the individual with the duty of care adheres to a standard of reasonable care to avoid careless actions that lead to harm or damage.
You must establish a prior or ongoing doctor-patient relationship when suing for medical malpractice. Doing so shows that the doctor was obligated to provide competent and appropriate medical care.
The second element is breach of duty. A medical professional breaches their duty of care if they fail to meet or adhere to accepted medical standards of care. The standard of care is the level of skill and diligence another medical professional with similar training, knowledge, and experience would provide in a similar situation.
The third element is causation. Here, you and your attorneys must prove that the healthcare professional’s breach of duty is directly responsible for the harm, injury, or damage you are suing for. You have to prove that the harm would not have occurred if the healthcare professional had not deviated from the standard of care.
The last element is damage. You must demonstrate that you have suffered measurable and verifiable damage from the healthcare professional’s negligence. Damages can include lost wages due to botched surgery, emotional distress, physical pain, loss of life or limb, additional injury after treatment, and financial losses. You can hire medical malpractice lawyers to help you put together the evidence that shows and proves the damages you are alleging.
Types of Medical Malpractice
There are numerous types of medical malpractice. We will cover a few of the most common ones. One of these is birth injuries.
Although labor and delivery are complicated processes, healthcare professionals have a duty of care to ensure the safety of the mother and baby before, during, and after childbirth. Any injuries due to negligent care, improper technique, or other causes fall under birth injuries, and you can seek damages.
The second is misdiagnosis or failed diagnosis. A misdiagnosis happens when the healthcare professional provides an incorrect diagnosis. They may also fail to diagnose correctly or delay in providing a diagnosis. Any or all of these can cause delayed, inappropriate, or missed treatment. If the patient gets worse or suffers any damages, they can sue.
Surgical errors are another common type of medical malpractice. Numerous types of surgical mistakes can lead to medical malpractice, including incorrect procedures, wrong-site surgeries, wrongful death, and leaving foreign objects inside a patient’s body after surgery.
Anesthesia errors are often classified under surgical errors but deserve a separate mention. They can happen when an anesthesiologist administers the incorrect anesthesia, incorrect dosage or fails to monitor a patient during surgery.
Medication and pharmaceutical errors are another common type of medical malpractice. Here, prescription, monitoring, and administration errors can lead to adverse drug reactions and other severe complications.
Medical Malpractice Cases Have a Statute of Limitation
You should always contact an attorney immediately, or as soon as possible, if a healthcare professional causes you or a loved one damage. The reason is that these lawsuits have a statute of limitation that varies from state to state and from case to case. Talk to your attorney about this so they can help you file before it lapses.
Conclusion
Medical malpractice is a complex legal concept meant to protect patients and ensure the highest standards of care in a healthcare setting. Patients have a right to seek compensation for all damage done by a healthcare professional through a medical malpractice lawsuit.
