Medical Mistake
When you go into the hospital or a doctor’s office to get a procedure completed, you may have certain expectations in mind. Perhaps you are hoping that everything will go according to plan and that you will heal shortly from the procedure. While this can happen, it is also possible that things will not go the way you were hoping. If this happens, does this mean that a medical mistake—or medical malpractice—occurred? Not necessarily. If you have your suspicions that a medical procedure did not go well and you are suffering from an injury or illness due to medical malpractice, you should speak with a lawyer right away.
What will a lawyer look for with medical malpractice?
When you work with a lawyer, like a medical mistake lawyer from a law firm like Cohen & Cohen, P.C., your lawyer will be looking for certain elements that will be present when malpractice has occurred.
- A standard of care. Your doctor will owe you a standard of care, which means they understood your symptoms and problems and attempted to treat you accordingly.
- There was a breach of this standard. The next element will be a breach in the standard of care. This means that your medical provider either did something or did not do something that another medical provider in the same position would have done.
- You were injured. Third, you must have been injured in some way because of the breach. It could be that you were given the wrong medication and it made your illness worse or that a doctor failed to diagnose an injury or illness and it became worse or life-threatening.
- You suffered damages. Simply stated, you must have suffered from damages as a result of the injury, whether it is high medical bills or being unable to return to work and losing your job.
Your lawyer will want to bring one or more medical experts in on your claim to show that other reasonable doctors in the same situation would have acted differently than your medical provider did.
Depending on the state you live in, you may need to serve your medical provider with written notice that you intend to file a lawsuit. If this is the case in your state, your lawyer can help you with this. Do you need legal help after a medical mistake was made? Reach out to a local attorney you can trust when proceeding with your case.
