There is not a person alive that wants to be involved in a medical malpractice case. We expect medical professionals to be perfect in their care, even when that might not be a realistic expectation for someone who is only human. However, if your chosen medical professional makes a mistake that potentially puts your life at danger, then they need to answer for that or risk someone else getting hurt by their negligence. However, the issue with medical malpractice cases is that you might not be sure that your doctor did something wrong in many cases. After all, you’re not a doctor and you like to think that you can trust someone with that much medical education to work in your best interests.
In cases where a doctor left a medical tool inside after surgery, then obviously that is medical malpractice, but what about in more ambiguous cases where you just suspect something is wrong? Sometimes, something about their treatment just feels wrong or you develop new symptoms because they didn’t take the right care. If you suspect medical malpractice, these are the steps to take to decipher if they really did something wrong during your treatment.
Discovering Negligence
Medical malpractice is simple to define – it is the negligence of a medical professional who has sworn an oath to uphold their duty of care to you. This means that any actions they take would be the same actions that would have been taken by any of their peers in order to give you the best possible treatment for your condition. If you suspect medical malpractice, you need to prove that their actions were different from what their peers would have done, and thus, more risky to your health. If you are unsure if what has been done to you is medical malpractice, consider the following medical malpractice situations:
- Medication errors, such as prescribing the wrong medication, dosage, or medication you do not need for your issue. Particularly if they caused dangerous side effects that exacerbated the issue or created new illnesses.
- Misdiagnosis of a medical issue that caused or had the potential to cause further harm. It is important to note, however, that doctors can miss symptoms that can lead to a misdiagnosis. This is particularly common if patients failure to mention information that may be of a crucial nature that are not easily caught by other means, such as various pains like headaches.
- Problems during a surgical procedure that caused further damage. Examples of this include nicked arteries, poor stitching, or incisions in the wrong area.
- Lacking follow-up care that did not address or actively prevent any issues. The initial care is important, but many fail to realize how crucial follow-up care is to their overall recovery. If you, for example, had signs of infection and no effort was given to provide you with antibiotics, that can be dangerous negligence.
Seek a Second Opinion
If you still aren’t sure if the medical professional that you suspect of medical malpractice actually did anything wrong, one of the best ways to check before turning to legal action that might not be warranted is to get a second opinion from another doctor. Medical professionals aren’t likely to protect each other if it is clear that one of their own has done something wrong and potentially very dangerous to their patients. However, it may be prudent to schedule an appointment at an unaffiliated clinic or hospital where they doctors would have little contact.
If you suspect your doctor of not taking the best possible care of you, it strongly behooves you to make an appointment with another doctor to check their treatment. If they discover that your previous doctor’s treatment was not within the standards of care that any other doctor would have taken, then it can be called medical malpractice. This is especially true if it has already begun to cause you further harm, such as a medical doctor using holistic treatment on a patient that only let their condition worsen.
Contact a Lawyer
If you have discovered that a doctor’s behavior or treatment is considered medical malpractice or had a second opinion to confirm it, the next step is to get in contact with a lawyer. Medical malpractice is obviously a very serious accusation and it can turn into a very complex case before it even reaches a courtroom. It is not just the doctor who will fight to protect their license, but you may also find the hospital fighting against you to protect their own reputation. This is why when you suspect medical malpractice, you want to consult your lawyer before you start throwing around accusations. Even before that, this is exactly why you want a second opinion from a doctor not affiliated with a particular hospital as well.
Once a doctor knows that you are accusing them of medical malpractice, the doctor and hospital will start to “circle the wagons,” so to speak, to start their defense and you will want to build your case to the fullest before that begins to happen. Hospital often have some of the best legal teams on retainer in your town, and you want to gather as much evidence and build as strong of a case as possible before their lawyers begin to try and unravel it. One medical malpractice case can sometimes be enough to destroy a career or even the reputation of a hospital, which is why they will fight so ardently against paying you the compensation that your case deserves. By settling, they essentially admit their own guilt, which can mean repercussions for their reputation.
Do you suspect your healthcare professional of being guilty of medical malpractice? If you need representation to fight for your health and the standards of care that we have come to know, contact us today. Let the team at Swor & Gatto fight for your health to make sure you get compensation for mistakes that put your health at risk. Don’t just let medical negligence fall by the wayside because that means it could end up hurting someone else.