Most people trust their doctors to diagnose and care for them with competence and compassion. It’s your doctor’s responsibility to affirm this trust by providing you with the best available care, treatments, and interventions available. But, sometimes, things can go terribly wrong and you end up seriously injured as a result.
According to the BMJ, medical errors represent the third leading cause of death in the United
States. With statistics like that, anyone could potentially fall victim to medical malpractice. If this happens, you’ll need an experienced medical malpractice attorney. Kathryn Burmeister of Burmeister Law Firm has the experience and knowledge necessary to help you deal with the consequences.
7 most common medical malpractice lawsuits
The most common types of medical malpractice, which result in lawsuits include:
- Misdiagnosis. This can occur if your doctor diagnoses you with one illness, when you, in fact, have a completely different condition. For instance, he may diagnose and treat you for a strain of flu, when you actually have mononucleosis. If your provider misdiagnoses or fails to diagnose a condition that any other physician with the same training and tools would have properly identified, you may have a medical malpractice claim.
- Delayed diagnosis. Whiley it’s related to misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis has subtle differences. This can occur when your doctor fails to diagnose a certain condition, allowing the illness to progress to a more serious level. This can have catastrophic consequences on your health, especially if he or shethe doctor fails to promptly diagnose something like cancer. In this case, your attorney must prove that your prognosis and condition would have been materially better had your physician promptly diagnosed and begun treatment earlier.
- Injuries during childbirth. This occurs when your doctor makes an error during your baby’s birth or during the prenatal care period. The error must lead to an injury affecting your baby for the rest of his or her life. Injuries that occur, due to provider error or neglect, during pregnancy or childbirth are among the most devastating for a couple. These can occur during a C-section or vaginal birth. They can result from a baby’s oxygen deprivation, placental abnormalities, improper use of forceps during delivery, or hemorrhage of the mother during pregnancy or labor.
- Medication mistakes. If you’re like most people, you trust your doctor will have the knowledge required to prescribe you the correct medication for your diagnosed condition. But that’s not always the case. Medication errors occur far more commonly than you might guess. Any healthcare provider in the chain of medical staff treating your condition could make an error. You might receive 100 times too much, or too little, medication. Often patients receive the wrong medication altogether. This could lead to anaphylaxis (a serious allergic reaction), worsening of your (now untreated) condition, poisoning, and even death.
- Anesthesia mistakes. Before you undergo surgery, you have to undergo the administration of anesthesia, which is a risky part of surgical procedures of any type. Errors in administering anesthesia can cause serious brain damage, anaphylaxis, serious medication interactions, and death.
- Surgical errors. Surgical errors can occur if the surgeon and his or her team use improperly sterilized instruments, fail to monitor vital signs during surgery, fail to control bleeding, leave medical tools inside a patient, operate on wrong body part or wrong patient, damage nerves during the operation, or provide improper care before or after surgery. These mistakes, while occasionally minor, can lead to lifelong injuries and even death.
- Hospital borne infections. While a hospital is definitely the place you want to be if you’re seriously ill or injured, hospitals also harbor countless pathogens that can infect patients. In fact, intensive care units represent one of the most common places for people to contract hospital-associated infections. Pathogens, such as bacteria, viruses, or fungi can cause serious infections upon admission to a hospital facility. Some of these can be extremely serious and difficult to treat.
If you think there’s a chance that you or a loved one are a victim of medical malpractice, contact Medical Malpractice Lawyer Kathryn Burmeister right away. She will arrange a zero obligation consultation to discuss the details of your case. You deserve to be treated with respect and compassion and when your healthcare provider fails, Burmeister Law will fight for your right to compensation for medical malpractice injuries.
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