Medical malpractice is when a medical professional treats, or fails to treat a patient in ways that cause injury or harm.
For example, when the nurse or physician fails to diagnose or treat a condition, it is referred to as medical negligence.
Many thousands of people are injured by medical neglect each year.
Every year in the United States, approximately 225,000 people die due to medical malpractice.
What is the Standard of Care?
Standard of Care: the caution that a reasonable professional in similar circumstances would exercise when providing care to a patient.
You must have evidence of the physician’s legal duty of care which is the first step in determining if there is a potential medical practice claim.
The responsibility of care states that the patient was under the physician’s care at the time of the alleged malpractice. Of which the physician violated the duty of care during the time treatment was given.
Was there a Breach of the Standard of Care?
Once you have proven the duty of care, then you must determine if there was a breach of the standard of care. The medical standard of care is the level and type of care that healthcare providers should provide for every patient.
The bottom line is you must produce evidence that the care given by the physician was inferior or out of the normal compared to the care that another physician would have provided in the same field with the same training.
The Breach Must Have Resulted in Harm.
The medical provider’s failure to meet the standard of care must have caused your harm—for example, prescribing penicillin to an allergic patient resulting in anaphylaxis.
What Type of Compensation is Available?
Compensation for Your Losses after Malpractice: Various medical malpractice cases range from surgery on the wrong body part to misdiagnosing a disease.
The compensation for physical harm due to a failure to comply with the standard of care, whether that be the harm resulting from a missed diagnosis, prescribing the wrong medication, or other error; pain, suffering, or mental anguish.
What are Non-Economic Damages?
A few examples of non-economic damages can include pain, suffering, mental anguish, and unwanted changes to your normal everyday life, a change in your relationships with family members, or the loss of if you lose the connection with your loved one, as well as the changes to your life that result in depression from the change of who you used to be.
What are Economic Damages?
Monetary damages, which include any future medical care equipment and supplies needed due to the harm or neglect, lost wages for those who are unable to work, and future medical care ranging from prescription costs to in-home nursing care to future doctor’s appointments.
Economic damages can include remodeling your home due to your injuries, such as installing ramps or other adaptive equipment. It can even mean moving to a new home due to changes in mobility.
What does financial harm include?
Financial harm can include the past and future medical care, the past and future medical supplies & equipment, and the past and future lost wages.
What is the Statute of Limitations to File a Suit For a Legal claim?
The statute of limitations is the deadline to file the lawsuit for damages.
This is the length of time of which varies by type of claim and by state.
Two-Year Time Limit to File Suit – The statute of limitations for a medical negligence case in Delaware is two years, commencing on the date of injury or, alternatively, three years if the damage is unknown to the injured person and cannot be discovered through reasonable diligence within two years of the injury date.
What is The Discovery Rule?
In some cases, the state may extend the date to the date the error is discovered if the patient can prove the medical facility already knew about the negligence, which can extend the statute of limitations. And allow for the case to be still filed.
Statute Runs from Date of Death – If the patient dies because of the injury due to medical malpractice, the statute of limitations starts on the date of the injury, not the date of death.
What is NOT Medical Malpractice?
Not everything that has a negative result is caused by neglect. As mentioned earlier, specific guidelines and qualifications must be met for an injury to be considered medical malpractice. It may be challenging to evaluate what constitutes malpractice. This determination is not something a patient should make on their own.
A couple of things do not mean medical malpractice has been committed.
Those can include:
- Poor Bedside Manner – There are situations when a patient has a negative experience while under their doctor’s care that does not qualify as medical malpractice. For example, a medical professional’s poor bedside manner does not constitute malpractice.
- Apologizing – If a physician, nurse, or medical staff member states that they made a mistake or apologized for an error, there is not necessarily a potential medical malpractice case.
- Paying your Medical Bills – Similarly, if the mistake or error results in the clinic or hospital offering to pay medical bills, that does not mean there are grounds to file a malpractice claim.
What Are the First Steps?
Where Does the Claim Process Start? First, obtaining your medical records and knowing the process. If you know what to expect during a medical malpractice case will make the process easier to understand.
The legal team will request your help to obtain authorizations to allow the hospital, clinic, or doctor’s office to share your medical records. Once the authorizations are complete, we will request copies of your medical records; requests may involve fees.
Next, the legal team will confirm that the records are complete as the documents are received. Multiple records may be necessary; therefore, the process may take several months.
Then our legal team will hire a medical expert to review the medical records and offer their opinion on whether the evidence is sufficient to prove medical negligence or malpractice. Once that is complete, the team will assess whether the potential damages make pursuing the case cost-effective.
Is the Claim Cost Effective?
Many states have a cap on non-economic damages; however, Delaware has no such law on the books, so an injured patient doesn’t need to worry about any statutory limit on their medical malpractice damages.
There are a few incidences in which a potential claim cannot be pursued because the costs would outweigh the possible compensation.
When doctors, surgeons, nurses, and other medical professionals cause negligence or harm, innocent people can suffer serious injuries or even death.
However, when these medical mistakes happen, patients and their loved ones could receive financial compensation for their injuries and loss.
At the Law Offices of Mary Higgins, we have experienced medical malpractice attorneys who can help you and your family get the best result possible from an injury or wrongful death claim.
What Are a Few Examples of Medical Malpractice?
Misdiagnosis Negligence
It’s estimated that nearly every American will be misdiagnosed at least once in their lifetime.
Most of these opinions and diagnoses are easily corrected, but some result in serious injury and even death. Doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare professionals must be held accountable in these cases.
Prescription Errors
Doctors and pharmacists ensure each patient receives the correct prescription and dosage. They’re also required, along with the manufacturer, to make patients aware of the possible side effects of any medication.
When these guidelines aren’t followed, a patient can suffer unexpected side effects or severe injury.
Call us if you or someone you know has had a bad reaction to a medication or has been prescribed the wrong medication. Our prescription medication attorneys are here to help you.
Strokes & Heart Attacks
Heart attacks and strokes are leading causes of death in the United States, and healthcare teams have a responsibility to monitor patients for the warning signs, including:
- Nausea
- Slurring or loss of speech
- Seizures
- Rapid heartbeat or hypertension
- Loss of balance
- Sudden headache
- Numbness in the face or extremities
- Fainting
- Paralysis on one side
Poor nutrition, smoking, obesity, a history of high blood pressure, and high cholesterol are all considered risk factors. Medical professionals should know how these factors impact a patient’s vascular system.
Doctors must consider all the possibilities and provide a professional standard of care to prevent heart attacks and strokes. When this duty is neglected, their patient could suffer a severe injury or death.
Pulmonary Embolism
A pulmonary embolism is a clot in the blood vessels of the lungs, and it is crucial to identify the symptoms, including:
- Shortness of breath
- Sharp chest pains
- Rapid pulse
- Sudden perspiration
- Anxiety
Pulmonary embolisms are considered one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in hospitals.
Irreversible brain damage can occur within 30 minutes of the first symptoms, so doctors must identify the signs of a pulmonary embolism and treat it immediately.
When these symptoms are misunderstood, misdiagnosed, or ignored by healthcare professionals, the delay in treatment can be deadly.
Contact us immediately if you or a family member has suffered a pulmonary embolism.
Emergency Room Errors
There are rules and procedures all healthcare professionals must follow and a standard of care to which every patient is entitled. However, if a doctor, surgeon, or other hospital staffer is careless or they don’t have the right skills, a patient can be seriously injured or killed.
Unfortunately, medical errors are common in hospital emergency rooms. Hospital ERs are often understaffed, and employees work 13 hours or more daily.
Medical Mistakes
An atmosphere primed for medical mistakes. Some of the most common mistakes in hospital ERs include the following:
- Surgical errors
- Misdiagnosis
- Delayed treatment
- Contaminated/Wrong blood type transfusions
- Administering incorrect medication
If a mistake causes harm to you or a family member, the hospital could be held responsible for your injuries. When medical malpractice is suspected, contact us.
Traumatic Brain Injury
TBI, or traumatic brain injury, affects millions of people yearly in the U.S. alone. It is a serious, sometimes fatal or debilitating, injury resulting from trauma sustained to the head. While TBI may not always be easy to identify, injuries typically occur due to slip and fall or from an automobile, motorcycle, or trucking accident.
The brain is responsible for controlling many functions of our body. This organ controls thought, memory, emotion, breathing, motor skills, touch, vision, hunger, and many other processes that regulate the body. When the brain suffers from a traumatic injury, it can affect physical, psychological, and social functions.
The Law Office of Mary Higgins understands the extent of damage that can result from these injuries, which is why we take every possible action to recover the compensation you or a loved one deserves.
We have the experience and resources to help you with your case. When you need help obtaining compensation for a traumatic brain injury, trust the attorneys at our law firm in Newark and Dover, Delaware, to get you the results you deserve.
Few Delaware resources exist to help consumers fight against illegal pressure and harassment from creditors and debt collectors. Through defending these cases, we often observe abusive collections practices with personal injury clients (in addition to the insurance hassles/fights that transpire in many personal injury cases). Our law firm has this extra experience to add to the years of personal injury cases we have won.