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Top 5 Common Medical Malpractice Claims

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According to Zimmerman & Frachtman, Parkland accident lawyers, “The field of medicine has specific guidelines for how conditions should be diagnosed and treated, as well as well-developed theories of ethics that apply to any healthcare provider who has a provider-patient relationship.” When a doctor, nurse, or other medical provider violates these guidelines, they are also violating your trust and the terms of their licenses. If this is the case, you may be considering filing a medical malpractice claim against them in order to get financial compensation and begin your path to wellness with a certain amount of peace of mind. Here are the top 5 common medical malpractice claims.

1) Misdiagnosis or Failure to Diagnose

It’s simply a fact of life that your physician will occasionally fail to diagnose or misdiagnose their patient’s condition, and so misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose isn’t grounds for a medical malpractice claim in and of itself.

There are, however, situations where misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose may be grounds for a malpractice claim. For example, if you have a scan that shows early signs of cancer but your medical professional fails to see them, you have clearly been put in a more dangerous position through the incompetence of your physician. Without a proper diagnosis, your doctor will not be able to treat you in the proper way, leading to unnecessary suffering or even death. Improper treatments and unnecessary hospital stays can also become a huge financial burden.

2) Wrong Prescriptions

Prescriptions can go wrong when you are given the incorrect medication, incorrect dosage, or are not told all the potential side effects. And, unfortunately, many prescription errors aren’t caught by the patient until it’s too late and injury or death has resulted. There are many ways for a prescription error to occur, including unclear handwriting, data entry errors, and simple human error. They are, however, all good reasons to start a medical malpractice suit.

3) Birth Errors

The majority of malpractice suits are against OBGYNs, nearly 20 percent of all suits filed. This is because of how extraordinarily vulnerable both the mother and the infant are to the results of medical malpractice.

Negligence can lead to horrible complications for both of them, including fetal spinal cord injuries and the number one cause of death during childbirth, postpartum hemorrhage. While some childbirth complications may be unavoidable, mothers and their infants require an extra level of care during birth because of the extremely dangerous complications that can so easily occur.

4) Surgery

Surgery brings a large number of potential complications. Making incisions at the wrong site, incorrect surgery sites, and leaving objects such as surgical instruments inside the body are all potentially dangerous mistakes that a surgeon can make. The majority of mistakes during surgery are due to poor planning before performing the operation. These mistakes can be dangerous, leading to infections, permanent damage, or even death. If a mistake has been made during surgery, a medical malpractice suit is a logical step to take.

5) Botched Anesthesia

Probably the most nightmare-inducing of the potential causes for a medical malpractice suit on this list, anesthesia errors are unfortunate and potentially dangerous. Lack of attention towards a patient’s medical history or incorrect levels of anesthesia can cause deadly consequences. Unfortunately, large surgeries aren’t the only causes of botched anesthesia. Pre-op anesthesia, recovery room pain medication, dental work, and outpatient operations all come with their own risks.

If you have been a victim of any of these common medical mistakes, you should consider finding an attorney and filing a medical malpractice claim. Medical malpractice claims have a statute of limitations, so you will want to file as quickly as possible to ensure you get the compensation and the justice that you deserve.