Medical malpractice is a medical mistake by a doctor, hospital, nurse, or other health care provider. All such licensed professionals are required under law to practice their specialty consistent with accepted standards of care. Legally, medical malpractice is defined as a deviation from the standard of care. One of the challenges in this type of litigation is to determine which standard of care applies to your individual situation. Consulting with experts in the relevant field will help in determining if your case has merit.
These are common mistakes seen in medical malpractice cases:
- Wrong diagnosis
- Failure to properly read an x-ray
- Wrong dosage of medication
- Failure to do a careful and thorough physical examination or take an accurate medical history
- Fed sores and decubitus ulcers from nursing failures in hospitals and nursing homes
- Mis-communication between hospital staff and physician
- Mistakes made during surgery, labor and delivery, or any diagnostic intervention (for example, colonoscopy)
These specific areas of malpractice are commonly seen in court cases:
- Failure to diagnose breast cancer by not feeling a lump or by not properly reading a mammogram
- Birth injuries including brain damage and Erbs Palsy (paralyzed arm) from a mishandled pregnancy or labor or in not doing a Cesarian section when a normal delivery is obviously not going as expected
- Surgical mistakes in any kind of surgery including punctures, lacerations, missing obvious disease, rushing the procedure, and sloppy incisions and suture closing
- Failure to see a fracture on an x-ray
- Failure to see lung cancer or something suspicious on an x-ray
- Failure to adequately warn the patient of known side effects of treatment or medication, resulting in a delay in seeking treatment
- Not recognizing appendicitis leads to the rupture of the appendix with serious consequences or death
Please remember that no two cases or patients are alike. Every case is different in one way or another. And money recoveries, and even many highly advertised large verdicts, by other victims of malpractice, are no guarantee your case will have a similar outcome.
Dental & Podiatry Malpractice Lawyers assist clients throughout New York with medical malpractice claims.