What are the basics of a medical malpractice claim?

Medical malpractice is nothing but a personal injury lawsuit filed against medical professionals such as nurses, doctors, laboratory assistants, paramedics, and/or institutions such as hospitals and clinics. Any patient who is harmed while seeking treatment for an injury or ailment has the right to claim compensation for damages. For the most part, medical malpractice is a kind of professional negligence.

However, proving malpractice or hospital neglect and filing a medical malpractice claim mandates meeting several requirements and you will need an Albany, NY medical malpractice lawyer (Med-Mal.USAttorneys/New-York) to carry this out. Trying a medical malpractice case without a medical malpractice lawyer is like trying to climb Mt. Everest without a local or professional guide. Foolhardy indeed!

What are the legal requirements?

• To begin with, the patient must establish that the healthcare provider had a duty to provide care to the patient because of their doctor-patient relationship
• A breach in duty happened
• This breach harmed the patient medically
• The harm is the direct cause for an injury for which the patient must get compensation

All these elements must be present in order to file a malpractice suit. In addition, similar to personal injury lawsuits the patient will have to prove that the doctor was liable for malpractice or that the hospital was negligent. The burden of proof is on the patient while the doctor does not have to prove that he or she wasn’t negligent and this paramount to New York medical malpractice attorneys. All these four elements are required to have existed in order to prove malpractice or hospital neglect.

Duty of Care

The victim has to prove that it was the duty of the particular medical professional or institution to provide the patient with competent care. This is not difficult to prove. This is a professional negligence suit, hence the patient and his/her medical malpractice lawyers must prove to the jury that the doctor failed to provide the expected standard of care that would have been provided by any other competent physician working with the same experience and training. Expert witnesses play a major role in convincing the jury of what is reasonably professional and what is not.

An Albany, NY medical malpractice lawyer will have a medical expert on hand and know who to call. Without a medical expert backing your claim, you do not have a claim.

When does breach of duty happen?

When a doctor fails to identify a disorder even when the patient displayed all visible symptoms then failure of diagnosis happens. Often, doctors associate symptoms with the wrong disorder causing what is medically known as misdiagnosis. This can delay treatment and also aggravate conditions.

In some cases, patients are victims of surgical errors when the doctor operates on the wrong part of the body, leaves instruments or perforates a vessel or an organ causing excruciating agony.

Plaintiffs often also complain of institutional neglect. Sometimes legal professionals get to fight suits against hospitals which have provided the patient with an unclean environment causing secondary infection. Other forms of hospital neglect include not changing your diapers in a timely fashion, or feeding the patient in accordance with a schedule, not attending to pressure sores of bedridden patients and failure to administer the proper medication.

Often times doctors fail to prescribe the proper medication dose causing medication errors – we saw this in the show ER with George Clooney’s character Dr. Ross who made colossal mistakes and ended up in Seattle. He would not listen to anyone! Nurses too can administer the wrong medication to a patient. Malpractice also happens when a doctor fails to warn a patient of the side effects of a medication.

Causation

The plaintiff must prove that the negligence was the direct cause of the injury. Doctors and hospitals often provide expert witnesses to show to the jury that the injury would have happened anyhow and the doctor had no role in the harm. This is the is the hardest part of the legal battle so if you or a loved one are a victim of medical malpractice or hospital neglect, make sure to consult a medical malpractice lawyer in New York right away.

Not sure how to find the legal help you need? Click right here: USAttorneys.com. The hospital may have free Wi-Fi but that is the only thing they are going to do for you. The hospital may feel sorry for you but no one is going to apologize, most likely not, and no one is going to say exactly what happened to you. In fact, you may not even recognize any of the nurses or doctors around you currently since they want to keep you in the dark.

Give us a call (we can help you find some legal talent) or use that site to find the lawyer you need.