Accidents happen in all lines of work, it’s a natural part of life, but some mistakes carry more weight than others. For example, when you receive care from medical professionals, you don’t expect to suffer because of avoidable errors. Medical malpractice comes in different shapes and sizes, with some errors leaving patients with completely altered lives. Deciding whether your injuries count as medical malpractice can be challenging, which is why we’ve put together the four most common examples.
Prescription Errors
Drugs come with positive and negative side effects. If dispensed to the wrong patient, a drug can lead to further medical issues and fatalities in the worst case. If your healthcare provider has diagnosed you incorrectly, your treatment may include drugs you don’t need. Alternatively, a pharmacy may have dispensed the wrong medication. Regardless of the reason, you deserve correct compensation for any potential adverse side effects.
Failure to Treat
When you seek care from medical practice, and they take you on as a patient, there is an agreement in place that requires them to provide appropriate levels of care. However, there are some cases where healthcare providers fail to treat. This could be as simple as discharging patients too soon or failing to offer aftercare instructions. This typically occurs when doctors are overworked, but it’s still framed as inexcusable medical malpractice.
Misdiagnosis
If you’re misdiagnosed, you can end up with an even worse medical condition, which can be life-changing. This type of malpractice typically occurs when you present symptoms present in many different medical conditions. However, it’s a healthcare professional’s job to assess symptoms and properly diagnose people. In other cases, misdiagnosis happens because of clerical errors, with notes being mislabeled. No matter how the misdiagnosis happens, it comes under the umbrella of medical malpractice, meaning you might be able to get help with this from a lawyer (you can see this page to get an idea of just one type of misdiagnosis they could potentially aid with).
Surgical Errors
Going into surgery is scary because you’re putting your life in someone else’s hands, and there’s no telling whether there’s going to be a mishap. Surgical errors include incorrect surgeries on patients, surgery in the wrong locations, foreign objects left inside the body, and unsanctioned surgeries. Medical providers should easily avoid surgical errors, it just takes proper communication between doctors, nurses, and any other member of staff. Whether you’ve suffered an innocent mistake or gross malpractice, you’re in a position to file a lawsuit for compensation.
Actions You Should Take
If you’ve been injured as a result of medical malpractice, the law is on your side, meaning you can put in a compensation claim. Upon discovering medical malpractice, the first thing to do is seek medical attention and retain any documentation proving it. Then, you need to hire an attorney specializing in medical malpractice – visit this link for more information.
You deserve to receive high levels of care from medical providers. However, mistakes happen to those with a duty of care, but you don’t deserve to suffer in silence. If you’ve been the victim of medical malpractice, seek medical attention and contact an attorney immediately to claim compensation.
