You’ve probably heard before now that if you sustain a personal injury or experience a consequential ailment as a result of a medical practitioner’s negligence, you have the right to file a lawsuit against the erring practitioner.
But what kinds of cases exactly qualify as “medical negligence?” You may wonder!
That is, when can you confidently ascertain that a doctor has made a mistake?
Is it when they treat you, and you don’t get better; when you make a complaint about A, and they diagnose B; or when they fail to consider some vital factors before tending to your condition?
Truth be told, there is no generic answer to the question because every medical case is unique in its own way.
However, there are some common mistakes made by some practitioners that can be classified as medical negligence.
If your doctor ever makes any of these mistakes, do not hesitate to hire a medical malpractice lawyer to file a lawsuit against them.
Misdiagnosis
One of the commonest negligence of most medical practitioners that often leads to injuries to patients involves misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis.
Perhaps due to a loss of focus, incompetence, or unavailability of the right tools, some medical practitioners diagnose their patients wrongly, thereby hindering them from getting the right treatment they need for their condition.
Failing to diagnose a patient correctly can prolong an ailment, cost the patient more money, and even cause a permanent injury to the person.
If you have reasons to believe that a certain doctor has misdiagnosed you, you can file a case against him by hiring a medical malpractice lawyer.
You’ll need this attorney because most doctors would be unwilling to accept that they truly made a mistake. So in order to bring them on their knees, you might have to prove your point. This is where your attorney comes in!
He will advise you on the steps to follow to prove your doctor’s negligence. For example, he might advise you to visit different doctors of a similar specialty and compare your treatment to your original doctor’s approach.
Wrong medication
Another example of medical negligence is the prescription or administration of wrong medications.
Many a time, we’ve heard reports of how a patient got administered the drugs of another patient, how a certain doctor prescribes the wrong medication for an illness, and how someone got an incorrect dosage of medicine.
The most common stories are the ones involving incorrect dosages, wherein a doctor writes an incorrect dosage for someone, or a nurse misinterprets a doctor’s report and administer a wrong dosage.
It is a grave offense to administer wrong medications to a patient. So if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of this malpractice, you might want to consider talking to your medical negligence lawyer right away.
Childbirth negligence
Another example of medical negligence can arise in the prenatal stage of a woman’s pregnancy. Usually, when a pregnant woman visits a doctor during the prenatal stage, the doctor should be able to accurately diagnose the condition of the mother and the fetus.
That is, is the fetus showing signs of birth defects, or is the mother suffering from a condition that might affect the pregnancy?
Unfortunately, there are instances where doctors miss these little details, causing the child to suffer fatal injuries like brain damage, bone fractures, and damage to nerves that control limbs.
Negligence during surgeries
This is, by far, one of the most common examples of medical negligence. Even if you’ve never experienced it before, you’ve probably heard stories of how surgeons accidentally puncture certain areas in the body during surgeries, forget surgical tools in the body, or prescribe an inadequate post-op procedure.
Surgical mistakes can cause severe damages to the human body. So if you observe that your doctor has been medically negligent during a surgical procedure you underwent, you should take swift action by consulting another doctor. Surgical mistakes are not to be toyed with because of how drastic their effects often turn out to be.
Anesthesia administration
Finally, medical negligence can also arise as a result of poor anesthesia administration by an anesthesiologist. Typically, these types of mistakes result in long term injuries, brain damage, and sometimes death.
Common examples of medical negligence relating to anesthesia administration include:
- Failure to consider a patient’s allergies before administering treatment/drugs/procedure
- Failure to consider a patient’s medical history
- Insufficient delivery of information regarding the risks involved
- Using faulty equipment to anesthetize a patient
- Administering too much anesthesia to a patient
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