There are many medical malpractice suits that begin when a patient is harmed by a nurse or doctor who didn’t provide the right health care treatment. While medical practice cases exist, the number of nurses, doctors, and hospitals who make serious mistakes are small.
However, with a small minority of cases, there are certain errors that come up more often than others.
People need to keep in mind that just because a patient wasn’t happy with the results or when a doctor makes a mistake, that doesn’t mean that malpractice actually occurred. The legal definition of medical practice is that the medical provider was negligent in some way – meaning that the doctor wasn’t skillfully competent and that their incompetence harmed the patient.
Childbirth Injuries
A number of childbirth injuries for example are caused by medical malpractice, including fractured bones, brain injuries, and klumpke’s palsy. However, these injuries can be caused by something that doesn’t fall into the medical malpractice realm. In addition, a medical professional’s negligence can happen either during childbirth or even long before. If there is negligent medical treatment during the pregnancy, this could harm the mother or the fetus. Some examples include:
- Failure to diagnose certain life-threatening medical conditions such as preeclampsia, anemia, or hypoglycemia
- Not identifying any birth defects or even ectopic pregnancies
- Not diagnosing a disease that might be contagious to the fetus of the mother
There are even cases where a doctor’s negligence during the childbirth could cause problems for both the mother and the baby. Some examples include:
- Not anticipating the birth complications beforehand
- Not responding to signs of fetal distress
- Not using a vacuum extractor or forceps the right way.
Medication Errors
According to various studies, medication errors harm over 1 million people in the United States every year and that number keeps rising. Medication errors occur in many ways – even from the beginning of the administration of the drugs. There have been plenty of cases where the patient has been harmed when the doctor prescribes the wrong medication. The patient can even be harmed by medication that the doctor prescribes to treat the wrong condition. The most common medication errors include the dosage amount – the patient either gets too little of the drug or too much. Some examples include:
- The doctor puts the wrong dosage on the prescription
- The use of equipment that administer the drugs the wrong way
- Medical professionals administer the incorrect amount but the prescription is correct.
Misdiagnosis or Delayed Diagnosis
Delayed diagnosis or misdiagnosis make up a big portion of the medical malpractice complaints. When a medical professional doesn’t make the right diagnosis, the patient risks losing out on treatment opportunities. In order to successfully prove a medical practice claim, the person would have to compare what the treating doctor did to how other doctors in the same specialty would have treated the case.
If another doctor under the same circumstances would not have made the same errors, then the treating doctor can be sued for medical malpractice.
Surgery Errors
Some serious malpractice claims come from mistakes that are made in the operating room. A doctor might make surgical errors during the operation or the supporting medical staff might make mistakes after the surgical operation.
Anesthesia Errors
Anesthesia errors are among the most dangerous mistakes that a medical profession can make. A small error by an anesthesiologist can cause significant brain damage, permanent injury, and even death. Some serious mistakes include:
- Failure to properly review the patient’s medical history
- Failing to tell the patient of the risks that are involved
Anesthesia mistakes during surgery include:
- Not monitoring the patient’s vital signs
- Giving an excess amount of anesthesia to the patient
- Using broken equipment to administer the anesthesia
- Not intubating the patients correctly
Getting Help
Anybody who is involved in medical malpractice cases needs to make sure that they get representation or advice from a lawyer who has experience in medical malpractice lawsuits.