Adding Injury to Injury: When Malpractice Results in Further Injury, You Need to Know Who to Talk To
In the event of an injury, you often need quick recovery, which you trust your doctor to help provide. While receiving treatment though, things may go wrong in the form of medical errors, and sometimes you won’t even notice.
Preventable errors: case of medical malpractice
There are instances however, when medical errors cause negative consequences and suffering to patients as a direct result of preventable medical mistakes. If you can tell that you have been a victim of medical mistakes that could have been prevented, your outcomes can amount to medical malpractice that can attract compensation if you file a lawsuit against your doctor or healthcare provider.
To be able to build a solid case of medical malpractice, the situation must satisfy particular thresholds prescribed by law.
The legal meaning of medical malpractice
The law considers situations where a healthcare provider or doctor treats a patient in a manner that strays from the accepted medical standard of care to be medical malpractice.
How do you know when the kind of treatment you have been given deviates from the medical standard of care? Suppose you are convinced that you have suffered an injury due to a medical malpractice, do you just walk up to a court of law and present your story to the jurist in charge? Just whom do you talk to?
Being convinced that you have suffered harm as a result of a medical mistake that fits this ‘definition’ does not necessarily warrant a solid case. While “standard of care” refers to the recognized course of action that another medical personnel with similar education would have taken in a similar situation, you must be able to adduce proof showing how the doctor or healthcare provider failed to provide treatment that was in line with that accepted standard. Without this proof, your case would not amount to much.
Medical malpractice lawyer is your friend
Don’t go to court. Don’t talk to your regular lawyer, unless he or she is experienced in medical malpractice cases.
The person you’ll need to discuss your grievance with is a medical malpractice lawyer. This is a law professional specialized in the specific branch of law that deals primarily with issues related to the rights of patients and the responsibilities of health care providers.
Your medical lawyer’s day job involves representing patients like you in medical malpractice lawsuits. Since your doctor, nurse, pharmacist, EMT or other medical professional who has deviated from the accepted standard of care will receive advice and defense from an equally (if not more) experienced medical lawyer, you’ll need a competent medical lawyer to prove the following two things:
- The physician made a mistake when s/he acted in a manner which violated the “standard of care” that is universally accepted, and;
- The mistake that the doctor or medical professional made resulted in injury to you.
It is only upon proving that these two things really happened that you’ll have a reasonable basis to claim medical malpractice – justifying a lawsuit. Filing this kind of a lawsuit with the help of your medical lawyer can successfully entitle you to compensation.
