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When you go into a doctor’s office, you essentially trust them with your life. But like other professionals, doctors make mistakes. Unfortunately, a doctor’s error could lead to severe injuries or even death.

Under United States law, doctors have a duty to provide an ethical standard of care to the patients they treat. Any deviation from the standard of care can result in a medical malpractice lawsuit should the victim choose to sue. 

Keep reading as we explore some common medical malpractices and when you are eligible for compensation. 

Compensation Medical Malpractice Case

Your doctor automatically owes you a duty of care immediately after you initiate a patient-doctor relationship. If the deviation from the standard of care results in injuries, you may be eligible for compensation. 

However, you will need to file a medical malpractice lawsuit against the doctor.

Even though the personal injury claims process may sound simple on paper, it can get pretty complicated in an actual situation. The complication is even higher for medical malpractice lawsuits. 

Therefore, it is vital to ensure you work with a lawyer with experience in medical malpractice lawsuits. 

Common Medical Malpractices

• Delayed Diagnosis or Misdiagnosis

Early diagnosis is critical in some ailments like cancer and can mean the difference between life and death. 

Wrong or late diagnosis means cancer continues to spread and becomes much more challenging to treat, significantly reducing a patient’s chance of beating it.

A wrong diagnosis could also mean that a patient gets the wrong medication or has to go through unnecessary surgeries that could result in disfigurement, disability, or even death. 

In most cases, misdiagnosis happens when a healthcare provider misreads the signs and symptoms. Failure to perform necessary tests, seek detailed patient information, or refer the patient to a specialist can also translate to misdiagnosis. 

• Failure to Treat

There are cases where a doctor can make the correct diagnosis but fail to offer timely treatment to the patient. These situations often arise when the doctor has many patients to treat, meaning they cannot provide timely intervention for all their patients. 

When a doctor has more patients than they can handle, their treatment diligence can be significantly compromised. In other words, the doctor may release patients too early, fail to offer directions for follow-up care, or order appropriate medical tests.

• Surgical Malpractice

In the last two decades, advancements in technology have helped make surgeries much safer. However, even the best medical devices may not help much if the surgeon makes critical errors. 

Common surgical mistakes include: 

• Leaving surgical tools inside a patient’s body
• Operating at the wrong site
• Working on the wrong patients
• Performing unnecessary surgeries
• Wrong anesthesia administration
• Wrong surgical procedure

Before any major surgery, patients must sign a consent form. But giving consent does not shield the doctor from injuries resulting from negligence.

• Birth Injuries

Welcoming a baby into the world is something every parent looks forward to. Sometimes they will get everything ready for the child’s arrival. However, there are never guarantees that the baby will make it out safely.

Sometimes negligent actions of maternity staff result in birth injuries that can, in the worst-case scenario, result in death. At other times, the child can suffer lifelong disabilities. 

The most common cause of childbirth injuries includes failure to diagnose complications and incorrect use of assistive devices. Failure to perform a C-section in emergencies or constantly monitor the baby and mother can also qualify as a birth injury mistake. 

• Medication Error

Sometimes the doctor can get everything right but make an error when prescribing medication. Wrong medication prescriptions can harm the patient giving grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit. 

Wrong medication can arise from prescription note mix-ups, typo errors, miscommunication between the treating physician and other staff, and reading errors. 

Irrespective of who makes the error, the affected person can choose to sue the hospital, the treating doctor, or the pharmacist that misread the prescription note.