We often hear about victims of medical malpractice collecting settlements from doctors or other health professionals. But how do you know if you have a case? An experienced Little Rock medical malpractice lawyer can help you determine if you have a legitimate case and if so can help successfully provide you with legal counsel and representation.
Medical malpractice refers broadly to any medical professionals who fail to exercise their reasonable duty of care. Every member of a health team, from nurses to pharmacists and surgeons to aides, have an obligation to show care and complete their duties with a reasonable amount of caution. In the legal world, “reasonable care” refers to the concept that another individual would have acted the same way given similar circumstances.
For example, imagine you’re a patient who needs surgery. Your surgeon completes the procedure with little incident but closes you up without double checking for surgical dressings. Shortly after the procedure, you develop an infection, and the surgeon must reopen the wound to remove the dressing.
Any other surgeon would have checked to ensure all surgical dressings were removed from the procedure site before stitching up the incision. In this case, your surgeon failed in his or her duty of care.
Proving Medical Malpractice
To qualify for a settlement, you must prove four basic things.
-That a doctor/patient relationship existed. You must have hired the doctor, and the doctor must have agreed to provide his or her professional services. You can’t sue a family doctor friend for dishing out informal medical advice, even if it was inaccurate.
-The doctor was negligent in your care. All personal injury claims rely on the idea of negligence, or the failure to provide reasonable care. You can’t collect a personal injury insurance claim simply because you were unhappy with your quality of interaction or treatment.
-The medical professional’s negligence directly caused the injury or wrongful death of someone. Since medical malpractice cases often deal with those who are already injured or sick, proving your injury was a direct result of your care can be difficult. The patient must prove his or her injury was “more likely than not” the doctor’s fault.
-The injury led to damages. Personal injury cases deal with both economic and general damages. Economic damages include things like medical bills and lost wages. General damages cover intangible losses, like pain, suffering, or loss of companionship.
What Are Common Types of Medical Malpractice?
Medical malpractice comes in many different forms, but some of the most common are:
-Failure to diagnose. Failing to discover a disease that another doctor would have, thus leading to a worse outcome, is grounds for medical malpractice.
-Improper treatment. A patient may have a claim if a doctor treats them in a way that no other competent doctor would.
-Failing to warn of the risks. Medical procedures often come with serious risks. If a medical professional fails to appropriately warn or inform the patient about these risks, he or she may have legal grounds for a suit.
What Makes Medical Malpractice Unique
Medical malpractice cases differ from other kinds of personal injury claims because they require expert testimony. While jury members may be able to decide on fault in a car accident case based on the evidence presented, they often need another medical professional to walk them through the case and explain what they would have done differently.
The law also requires that you bring your medical malpractice claim to court within a certain time frame, known as the statute of limitations. In many states the statute of limitations for medical malpractice is two years from the date of the incident.
Start Your Medical Malpractice Claim
Successfully settling a medical malpractice claim requires the help of a professional. To start your claim now, contact our office for a free initial consultation with a successful Little Rock injury attorney with extensive experience handling medical malpractice cases throughout the state of Arkansas.