We all know that fatal buzzing noise from the classic Hasbro board game Operation. That shrill shriek let players know that their operation to remove the funny bone or the Adam's apple was botched, and that it was the next players turn to play doctor. However, when doctors make mistakes in the real world, it is personal injury lawyers who sound the alarm in a court of law and try to make restitution between the victimized patient and doctor.
Doctors aren't perfect. Medical errors complicate procedures and hurt or kill almost 100,000 Americans every year. When a licensed doctor deviates from standard practices in any way during a procedure, he is committing medical malpractice. Medical malpractice is considered a form of negligence on a medical caretaker's part. Clinic workers, nursing home attendants, hospitals, nurses, technicians, and osteopaths can all be held accountable for negligent work through a medical malpractice personal injury lawsuit.
Situations where a personal injury lawyer can build a medical malpractice lawsuit include a misdiagnosis or late diagnosis of a condition such as heart attacks, strokes, or cancer. Doctors also make mistakes during surgery by committing errors such as leaving instruments inside patient's bodies after the procedure is completed. During a spinal or brain surgery, if the patient ends up with paralysis or brain damage, a lawsuit is sure to follow. Doctors can also make mistakes when prescribing medications, not taking into account a patient's allergies or conflicting medications. Anesthesiologists can also make mistakes when putting people under. At times, tough calls have to be made in the emergency room. Decisions that end up with a patient's limb being amputated or a patient dying a wrongful death often result in malpractice lawsuits.
Depending on the severity of the negligence and the resulting injury, the resulting medical costs and lost wages during hospitalization and rehabilitation can add up to be quite costly. A personal injury lawyer will make sure to recover these costs in damages during the malpractice suit. Damages awarded as a result of a malpractice suit can be compensatory and/or punitive. Compensatory damages can be either economic or noneconomic, and can be assessed for past and future losses such as lost earning capacity, medical expenses, and caretaking expenses. Noneconomic damages only take into account the costs associated directly with the injury, and punitive damages are only awarded in extreme cases of recklessness and severe negligence.
Four medical tenements must be broken in order for a medical malpractice suit to succeed. A personal injury lawyer must prove that the patient was owed a duty by a health care provider. He must then prove that this duty was breached. The breach of duty must directly result in an injury, the damages caused by the injury must be well documented. Using paperwork from your hospitalization as well as professional testimonies, your practitioner of medical malpractice law will stitch together a case showing the negligence which lead to the injury.
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