You’ve probably read or heard countless accounts of medical negligence forcing individuals to sue their providers for damages. However, you may not give such stories a second thought until the issue strikes home. Medical malpractice can make treatment useless or leave you with devastating new health or financial problems.
Before you leap into the decision to file a medical malpractice lawsuit, you need to understand what this area of the law encompasses, what kinds of damages you might claim, and how to follow the correct procedures for pursuing that lawsuit effectively. Start by studying the answers to these questions about medical malpractice.
What Does Medical Malpractice Involve?
Medical malpractice counts as a category of personal injury under the law. In a medical malpractice case, a doctor, nurse, hospital, or other healthcare provider accidentally harms a patient in the course of caring for that patient. The harm may occur either due to negligence or omission on the provider’s part.
If a medical professional’s negligence harms you, you would most likely direct your medical malpractice lawsuit at that individual or against a particular medical team who shared liability. However, in the less-likely event that the hospital itself caused the error that harmed you, you may have the right to sue that institution instead.
What Forms Can Medical Malpractice Take?
Medical malpractice can take a variety of highly destructive forms, starting with errors committed during the initial diagnosis. For instance, an incorrect diagnosis could allow you to succumb to one ailment while under treatment for something you don’t even have. A delayed diagnosis could needlessly complicate your treatment prospects.
Even if you receive the correct diagnosis in a timely manner, your medical provider could fail to treat your condition through the follow-up care normally associated with that treatment. A provider might also commit malpractice by prescribing the wrong kind or dosage of medication or by administering the wrong amount of anesthetic.
Avoidable surgical and delivery errors may count as medical malpractice. Examples include unnecessary surgery, surgery on the wrong part of the body, misuse of medical equipment, and avoidable physical damage. During delivery, an infant may experience avoidable nerve, spinal, or brain damage due to an obstetrician’s negligence.
What Can Medical Malpractice Damages Include?
As in most personal injury cases, medical malpractice cases can involve special, general, or punitive damages. Special damages include clear, concrete losses in the form of medical bills, lost income due to disability, anticipated future financial losses, and other economic impacts.
General damages cover non-economic losses such as pain and suffering, both from the initial treatment and any additional treatment made necessary by the original act of negligence. It also covers mental and emotional damages such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder related to the provider’s actions.
Courts award punitive damages relatively rarely. However if your provider committed a particularly grievous or blatant act of negligence, showing obvious disregard for your well-being, the court might award punitive damages.
How Does New York Handle Medical Malpractice Cases?
The State of New York, like many other U.S. states, has its own rules regarding medical malpractice lawsuits. For example, in most cases you must file your lawsuit within 2.5 years of the date of injury. If the negligence involved a foreign object left in your body, you have one year from the date you discovered the object.
New York doesn’t impose a cap on the damage compensation you may seek, nor does it require a preliminary panel screening before the case can go to court. However, unlike many other states, an apology or expression of sympathy by the offending physician does not show or imply liability.
What Must You Show in a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit?
Medical malpractice lawsuits require you to demonstrate the same basic points as most other personal injury cases. You must show that the medical provider owed you a duty of care and failed to uphold that duty. You must also show that this failure led to damages and that the damages affected your quality of life.
The main difference between medical malpractice and other forms of personal liability involves the duty of care issue. The complexity of medical conditions, procedures, and jargon may complicate your effort to show that the provider failed to live up to the standard of care commonly recognized by the medical profession.
To show that your medical provider failed the duty of care test by not living up to the accepted standard of care, your attorney may engage expert medical witnesses to testify on your behalf. Such experts typically specialize in the relevant field of medicine, giving them the necessary expertise and authority to help support your case.
If you believe that the negligence of a medical professional or organization has done you significant harm, talk to the legal experts at Siben & Siben LLP. Our team can examine the facts of the case, help you file that case in a timely manner, and do everything possible to help you secure the compensation you deserve. Contact us today.