(845) 802-0047Consent is an essential aspect to all medical treatments. No medical professional can provide care to a patient without that patient’s permission. Furthermore, doctors, dentists, and other providers must give the patient sufficient information about a pending procedure to allow that person to make an informed decision. This includes disclosing any risk of harm that may result from the treatment.
Failures to provide fair warning about potential side effects or complications can constitute medical malpractice. A medical provider that does not provide this information could be liable for all damage that results from the treatment. A well-versed malpractice attorney could offer you more information about Albany failure to warn medical malpractice cases and give a case evaluation to determine if your situation entitles you to compensation.
Failure to Warn as an Example of Medical Malpractice
The idea of patients controlling their own decisions when receiving medical care is vital to the practice of medicine. As much as a doctor, nurse, or dentist may recommend a course of treatment and believe that this is what is best for a patient, they may only proceed if that patient agrees.
A medical provider must receive the patient’s explicit consent to perform any examination or invasive procedure. Even something as innocuous as listening to a patient’s heart must come only after receiving permission from the patient. While this example is unlikely to result in an injury, it is illustrative of the importance of consent in medical treatment.
Sadly, injuries do occur while in a doctor’s care. If a doctor fails to obtain proper permission from a patient prior to providing treatment, and the treatment results in an injury, that doctor may have committed malpractice. The law defines medical malpractice as a deviation from accepted standards in the medical profession, which results in an injury that a reasonably skilled peer would have avoided. Since all doctors should know that they need to receive permission to treat a patient, a failure to warn can constitute medical malpractice in Albany.
Helping Affected Patients to Pursue Compensation
If a medical provider does not obtain consent before performing a medical procedure that results in an injury, that provider is liable for all resulting damage. This can include payments needed to cover additional medical care, lost quality of life, and missing income due to time spent in recovery or the onset of a permanent disability. An attorney could help measure how an event has impacted a person’s life and demand all appropriate compensation.
Still, collecting compensation through a medical malpractice case can be a complex undertaking. Proving these cases usually requires the help of a qualified expert who can testify as to how a failure to warn prior to treatment constituted a breach of the relevant medical standard of care. In fact, New York Civil Practice Law & Rules § 3012-A says that parties must submit an affidavit stating that an expert has examined the case to the court soon after filing a formal complaint for damages.
There are also strict time limits that impact medical malpractice cases. Under NY Civ. Prac. Law & Rules § 214-A, people seeking compensation must bring a case to court within two years and six months of the incident that caused an injury. Because of the complex nature of many of these cases, it is vital to get started as soon as possible.
Ask an Attorney for Help in an Albany Failure to Warn Malpractice Case
Every person who receives medical treatment must consent to that care. This applies equally to family doctors performing routine examinations and surgeons performing complex operations. Every medical provider must fully inform patients about the procedure that is about to take place and tell them about the inherent risks. A failure to warn about potential harm that may result from treatment constitutes a violation of the medical standard of care.
An attorney could help you pursue a medical malpractice case after a failure to warn in Albany. Give us a call now to discover what kind of compensation you could request.