Saturday, October 15, 2011

How to Know If You Are the Victim of Medical Malpractice

Understanding if you are the victim of medical malpractice requires a quick evaluation of the circumstances surrounding your specific incident. What is more difficult than understanding if you are a victim of a medical injury is understanding if you have a legal case for a lawsuit. You should never trust your own judgment in such situations. If you have any suspicion at all that you may have suffered from medical malpractice, you should call an experienced lawyer for a professional consultation. An attorney will be able to confirm if you are indeed a victim and provide an estimate of any compensation to which you are legally entitled.

A valid medical malpractice case requires that you and your situation meet all of the criteria legally set forth for the occurrence of medical negligence or medical injury. Generally, the amount of the damages must be greater than the legal cost of the case. Determination of medical malpractice can be determined by asking yourself the following questions:

Lawyer Malpractice

Were you injured during treatment or while in the care of medical professionals?

How to Know If You Are the Victim of Medical Malpractice

To be a victim of malpractice, an injury or some sort of damage must have occurred. This is a requirement of all civil tort cases in the United States. Damages can be physical, psychological, or monetary. In addition, the damages must have been caused unnecessarily, but the line between what is necessary and what isn't can be blurry and has caused heated courtroom debate in more cases than one.

Damages can include any or all of the following: disfigurement, disability, loss of income, loss of capacity to earn future income, pain, suffering and medical expense. The more serious cases will involve several types of damages, especially if they are permanent, such as permanent disability.

Were errors made by a medical professional during your treatment?

When damages occur as a result of medical treatment, it requires that the damages were avoidable. Medical malpractice assumes that had the medical professionals done their job correctly and without error, the damages would not have occurred. Every doctor, nurse, and medical assistant must adhere to certain accepted medical standards. When they deviate from the accepted standards of care, grounds for negligence are created. A doctor or the hospital a doctor works for is legally liable for any injuries resulting from negligent treatment.

Did the errors during treatment cause the injury?

For medical negligence to occur, the injuries must be a result of the negligence. If a personal injury results from the medically accepted standard of care, it may not be able to be considered malpractice. Also, if a doctor makes an error or deviates from the accepted standard of care during your treatment, but it doesn't cause any damage or injury it, also, cannot be considered.

How serious is the injury?

Malpractice claims are usually very complex, labor intensive, and time consuming. The case will be expensive, usually more than the plaintiff can afford should payment be required upfront. Because of this, lawyers pick and choose which cases they will accept very carefully. Even the greatest of lawyers cannot afford to lose too many medical malpractice claims. It would bankrupt them. If the injury is too small, most lawyers will not accept the case. When the cost of the case is more than the damages that can be received, it is not worth pursuing.

An example of a medical malpractice claim that probably wouldn't be accepted is as follows: A doctor makes an error while stitching a wound. The wound becomes infected the next day requiring another trip to see the doctor. The doctor corrects the error, successfully treats the infection, and it completely disappears in two days. No permanent damage occurred. The cost was only an office visit and lost work equaled zero to two days. Many lawyers would not bother with such a case.

Ultimately, you should not be deciding yourself whether you have a basis to file a claim. This decision should be left to an attorney experienced in these cases.

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Schultz & Myers, a St. Louis medical malpractice lawyer is committed to representing personal injury victims throughout Missouri. We aggressively pursue those accountable for our clients' injuries and remain compassionate in handling the sensitive nature of each unique claim.

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