What Are the Most Common Medical Malpractice Claims?
Whether you’re seeking medical treatment for a health issue or general well-being, you expect to receive quality patient care. In most cases, this is what you get. However, some healthcare practitioners fail to live up to their duty to provide treatment within acceptable standards, leading to bodily harm and associated losses. Medical mistakes can sometimes be life-changing, so it’s important to trust a Florida medical malpractice attorney to protect your rights.
To help you understand the types of conduct that may give rise to a claim, you should check out some of the most common forms of medical errors healthcare providers make:
Misdiagnosis and Diagnosis Errors
A 2023 article published by MDLinx pointed to diagnosis mistakes as the number one reason for malpractice in the U.S. Around 12 million people receive an inaccurate or delayed diagnosis, a serious concern because the patient may have missed opportunities for treatment. Extended hospitalization – and the associated costs – is a common result, but there are also issues when the patient receives care that he or she didn’t need.
No provider is perfect, but careless actions and negligent care can cause catastrophic, if not fatal, health issues. For example, we unfortunately often see patients who went to the hospital with symptoms of a stroke; however, the emergency room doctors and nurses classified their symptoms as vertigo. As a result, these patients missed out on important and time-sensitive medications and interventions that could have avoided the permanent damage that resulted from the stroke.
Anesthesia Errors
Anesthesiologists are entrusted with administering essential medications during medical procedures, and these drugs can be extremely dangerous in the event of mistakes. If the anesthesiologist doesn’t pay close attention to the patient’s medical history, there may be an overdose or underdose situation. Plus, the doctor must continually monitor vital signs for indications of distress. Anesthesiologists sometimes can even commit malpractice in intubating a patient, leading to lifelong injuries or even death.
Birth Injuries
A considerable proportion of medical malpractice claims involve allegations of negligence during prenatal stages, during labor, and right after birth. Both the mother and the infant can be harmed by mistakes, which can lead to issues such as:
- Fetal distress due to lack of oxygen to the brain
- Spinal cord injuries from improper use of forceps or other devices
- Postpartum hemorrhage, which is a leading cause of maternal injuries after birth
- Children developing cerebral palsy or Erb’s palsy
- Preeclampsia
- Brachial plexus injuries
- Retinopathy of prematurity
Mistakes Involving Medication
These errors can be catastrophic when the patient is given the wrong medication or dosage, either by the physician when writing the prescription or by the pharmacy when filling it. In addition, healthcare providers are responsible for making patients aware of the side effects and contraindications, so the failure to provide essential information may be actionable.
Surgical Negligence
There’s a wide range of errors during surgery that can cause harm to patients, from operating on the wrong body part to even performing surgery on the wrong person. Another example is leaving an object inside the patient or accidentally slicing into an organ.
Some patients may even feel like they underwent an unnecessary procedure or could not make a fully informed decision due to the surgeon’s negligent care.
Premature Hospital Discharge
Sometimes, patients are discharged from the hospital or emergency room before they are healthy enough to leave or before the patient is equipped to handle these issues at home or through follow-up visits. Premature discharge forces patients to continue suffering from worsening illnesses or conditions, and premature discharge can even result in fatalities.
For example, emergency rooms may discharge patients before running comprehensive tests or even giving them a diagnosis, which could mean that patients are not aware of any urgent risks or issues. Hospitals may allow a patient to leave a hospital without sufficient follow-up care instructions or before they are stable.
Failure to Provide Treatment
Sometimes, a healthcare provider does have an accurate and timely diagnosis of a patient’s illness or injury, but they fail to provide treatment or help the patient get care.
A provider may not put you on the right course of treatment, delay your referrals, or provide adequate follow-up care. These failures to treat patients could be medical malpractice.
Are All Medical Errors Considered Medical Malpractice?
No, just because a doctor or other healthcare provider made a mistake does not mean you were a victim of medical malpractice. Determining malpractice can be challenging without the legal experience and knowledge to back it up.
In order to determine medical malpractice, Florida personal injury attorneys must prove four elements of negligence. These include:
- Establishing a professional duty of care: A duty of care just means establishing that the provider had an obligation to provide you with care. If the doctor or other professional was treating you in a professional, official capacity, this sets up a duty of care.
- Proving that care did not meet the profession’s standard of care: The standard of care is key to any malpractice case. Lawyers must show that your provider’s actions (or lack of actions) did not live up to the standards of that profession and specialty.
- Determining causation: We must be able to prove that this breach in the standard of care directly caused your injuries and related losses.
- Identifying damages: Medical malpractice can cause a lot of harm to patients, and our lawyers will work on seeking damages such as past and future medical bills, pain and suffering, emotional anguish, and other expenses.
Medical malpractice cases are highly nuanced, and you should not go to any personal injury law firm for help. A firm dedicated to medical malpractice is best equipped to prove these elements and fight for maximum compensation.
Who Is Liable for Medical Malpractice?
Many patients may think they can only sue doctors, but many individuals or entities could be liable for someone’s losses and injuries. In most cases, multiple parties are liable for harm, and our malpractice lawyers can pursue damages from all involved parties when appropriate.
We may be able to pursue damages from:
- General physicians and surgeons
- Specialists, like oncologists or anesthesiologists
- Nurses and other nursing staff
- Pharmacists and pharmacist technicians
- Hospitals and medical groups
- Imaging professionals
Malpractice is often caused by overworked staff, understaffed facilities, miscommunication between various healthcare professionals, miscommunications between providers and patients, and poorly trained professionals, among other reasons. While there may be explanations for how such errors occurred, providers still have a duty to uphold the standard of care and should be held responsible for negligent failures.
What Forms of Damages Can I Purse for Medical Malpractice?
Medical malpractice can have long-term effects on your physical, mental, emotional, and financial well-being—it isn’t fair that someone’s negligent actions have put you in these hardships.
No amount of money can ever truly make up for the difficulties you or your family are going through right now, but our medical malpractice attorneys are determined to get you a settlement or verdict that can help meet some of your needs and hold negligent health providers accountable for all forms of medical malpractice claims. Some damages we can help you pursue include:
- Current and future medical expenses: You likely have ongoing medical needs and may need future care to treat your condition. Our lawyers help you seek any and all relevant medical expenses related to surgeries, medication, follow-up appointments, occupational or physical therapy, long-term care, and other needs.
- Lost income: Your injuries can make it difficult, if not impossible, to return to work during recovery. Our lawyers can make sure you are compensated for any lost wages, salary, or other forms of income during this time.
- Out-of-pocket expenses related to your injury: This looks different for every patient. For instance, some victims may now need to take long car trips or flights to see a specialist who can help treat their cancer after a delayed or missed diagnosis. Patients may not be able to physically perform tasks and labor in their homes and must now hire someone to handle them.
- Loss of earning potential: Loss of earning potential goes beyond the immediate loss of your regular paycheck or earnings. This loss is supposed to help you address all the benefits you could have earned had you stayed in your current line of work.
- Pain and suffering, emotional anguish, and other non-economic damages: Medical malpractice injuries also cause intangible losses. You may have suffered immense physical pain from your condition, or you may no longer be able to fully enjoy your life because of your injuries. You may even suffer from conditions like depression or PTSD after your ordeal. This malpractice can even hurt your relationships with your loved ones. No matter how this malpractice hurts you, you deserve maximum compensation.
Consult Our Florida Medical Malpractice Lawyers for Free
These are some of the most frequent mistakes that can lead to patient harm, but many other forms of medical malpractice may lead to injuries. You could require extensive treatment to recover, but there are many other types of losses for which you can recover compensation.
To learn about your rights and remedies, please contact Freidin Brown, P.A. today. We’re happy to schedule a free case evaluation to review your circumstances in person at our Miami and Fort Myers offices or through a video call if one of our locations is not convenient for you. Our consultations are available 24/7.
