Medical malpractice occurs when the act of a health care practitioner leads to the injury of a patient either through omission or negligence. This omission can be caused by treatment errors, misdiagnosis, and health care mismanagement.
Medical malpractice and error are one of the foremost causes of death in the United States, where about 400,000 individuals lose their lives every year as a result of errors made by professional medical practitioners.
Research by Johns Hopkins showed that over 250,000 persons suffer from medical errors per year and the figures are projected to exceed 440,000. After cancer and heart disease, medical malpractice is responsible for causing most deaths.
Patients or their loved ones can file a medical malpractice lawsuit against the hospital, physician or health care professional for causing injury or death due to medical malpractice.
If you’re a patient or if a family member is involved, knowing the most likely causes of such medical errors will save a life. When you are more diligent and attentive you can make sure that you get the best care–even though the doctor is too busy.
About 50% of these health practitioners from 55 years and above have been sued in contrast with 8% from 40 years and below. Also, female health practitioners are less likely to face lawsuits as a result of differences in specialty and age.
Luckily, in 2015, 68% of the lawsuits against healthcare practitioners and institutions were dropped or dismissed. Also,88% from the 7% of the cases that end up in the court are won by the defendants, which implies that it is very common to file a lawsuit but difficult to win one.
The following characteristics must be present in the claim before it can be considered medical malpractice.
Delayed Diagnosis or Misdiagnosis
The most common causes of lawsuits in the United States is a misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis for outpatients. If the doctor diagnoses correctly, but after a fair period of time, then delayed diagnosis happens. When you wait, the symptoms get worse and you would not have suffered the same problems if you had received the right diagnosis and medication in time. The patient’s symptoms may all be ignored, the appropriate examinations are not performed and the patient is not referred to a specialist doctor, causing a lack of care. It is believed that due to delayed diagnosis or misdiagnosis, an injury occurred as a result of the treatment opportunities that were missed by the patient that could have prevented harm or mortality. Also, a misdiagnosis could result in irrelevant treatment that could result in unwanted or adverse side effects. The complainant proves that the physician neglected the correct standards of care in order to win the case. This implies that, if the physician is experienced and competent enough, the omission or error should have been avoided.
Childbirth
The fetus during pregnancy or childbirth can be injured in several ways. Few injuries can be harrowing such as cerebral palsy, paralysis or seizure disorders. There are situations where the injuries occur naturally too, but the surgeons and OB/GYNS are the common physicians that face a lawsuit in this situation.
The controversial injuries can go all the way back to the different stages of the pregnancy. Some of the negligent prenatal care is an improper diagnosis of the mother’s medical condition like HIV, Rh incompatibility, gestational diabetes, anemia, pre-eclampsia, lupus or herpes that can end up affecting the fetus. Injuries can also occur during childbirth like failure to predict complications from birth as a result of fetal size, failure to carry out C-section, irregular usage of vacuum extractor or forceps or complications of a nuchal cord.
Anesthesia
Even though problems from anesthesia are very uncommon, they can be very dangerous. Examples of anesthesia issues are:
Excessive anesthesia
Failure to notify the patient of the important procedure before an operation such as avoiding food.
The use of defective equipment.
Neglecting crucial signs.
Even the slightest negligence in anesthesia can result in severe brain damage or even death.
Infection
Pathogens such as superbugs like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus can be easily discovered in hospitals and clinics. The negligence of healthcare practitioners can result in severe infections, which can be used to file a lawsuit for medical malpractice. Research indicates that only 17% of healthcare practitioners notify the patients about the possible infections in the hospital.
Medication errors
Up to about 7,000 to 9,000 individuals die annually in the United States due to medication errors. This error has led to several lawsuits as medication error is usually very common. Errors can be made by a physician on prescription, improper drug administration or wrong drug interactions. Medication errors that are common in hospitals are related to dosages or administering the wrong drug to a particular patient.
Surgical errors
The lawsuits on medical malpractice are usually common among general surgeons as indicated above. More than 50% of surgeons have been sued once or twice before. Surgeons are usually known to commit errors like operating the wrong anatomical position, puncturing an organ, forgetting instruments inside the body, improper blood-vessel ligation and so on. The nursing staff assisting during the postoperative stage can also make errors like inadequate care, which could result in infection, wrong drug administration, neglecting important postoperative instructions which can result in complications.
Informed consent
Informed consent is also very important. The wish of the patient must be met by the physician and adequate information must also be provided to facilitate informed decisions by the patient. A lawsuit can occur when a physician fails to offer informed consent. A patient who was not informed properly concerning a particular procedure can file for a lawsuit if the outcome of the procedure is a failure.
Most cases of medical malpractice filed by the complainant are either dismissed, dropped or withdrawn, but a defendant can end up paying about $30,000 in legal fees which is 38% of the total fees of the entire claims. Also, lawsuits that do not yield results still end up costing a lot.
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