Should you sue your doctor for medical malpractice?
Perhaps you feel as if your doctor misdiagnosed your condition. Maybe you feel as if your emergency c section was not necessary after all. Perhaps you feel as if your child was released from the hospital prematurely, which caused your child to have a life-threatening condition. How do you know when it is appropriate to sue your doctor or health care worker?
There are many different types of medical malpractice cases. Perhaps your doctor misread or ignored significant lab results. Maybe your surgeon cut at the wrong site on your body. Perhaps your doctor prescribed you the wrong medication for your illness. Many things can go wrong during a hospital stay.
How do you know if it is time to sue? Here is what you need to know about medical malpractice cases.
First, you need to prove the existence of a doctor and patient relationship. This is usually not a difficult thing to show in a medical case. Documentation should be readily available linking you with the doctor or health care professional with your treatment.
Next, you need to prove the doctor violated the standard of care. The medical community recognizes specific treatments as being standard for a set of symptoms or conditions. This is known as the standard of care. If your doctor did not follow care that is consistent with those standards, he or she might be found negligent under the law.
After you show that the doctor violated the standard of care, you need to prove that the mistake caused an unfortunate result. This mistake could have resulted in the death of a loved one or have caused your condition to worsen. This can be difficult to prove. Doctors are not expected to be perfect. They may treat you for one condition without knowing that you have underlying medical issues that affect the treatment. You need to prove that your injuries or illness wasn’t from some underlying medical condition that was unknown to your doctor.
Finally, to sue your doctor for malpractice, you must give the court details of the damages you incurred as a result of the poor medical care. These damages could include the loss of income that you suffered from not being able to work at your regular job. Damages could also include physical and mental pain and suffering you endured as a result of your misdiagnosis. You could also sue for damages if your life were changed as the result of your poor medical care.
You and your legal staff need to show that your case meets the qualifications for medical malpractice by a preponderance of the evidence. This is easier to prove than criminal cases. This does not mean that medical malpractice is easy to show. There are many steps in a medical malpractice case. In fact, the case can’t even go to court until it passes a malpractice review board.
Since laws differ from state to state and proving medical malpractice is tricky, it only makes sense to contact a professional lawyer in your area to review the facts to see if you have the makings of a case or not.
