Contacting An Attorney For Medical Malpractice: What You Need To Know

Medical malpractice is a subgroup found under the umbrella of negligence.  Negligence, in general, results from an unintentional error or omission on the part of the actor when there was a duty owed to the person harmed to not commit the error or omission.

Experienced medical malpractice attorneys understand that patients go to medical professionals seeking remedies to their ailments.  But sometimes they end up with continuing pain that is the same, if not greater, as it was prior to receiving medical care.

Once a doctor-patient relationship is created, the medical professional owes the patient a duty to not cause preventable and foreseeable harm.  If this duty is breached, then the medical professional can be held liable to the patient if the patient was injured from the medical professional’s act or omission.  However, the injury must have been the natural and direct result of the medical professional’s breach of duty.  And of course, without damages, there can be no recovery for a plaintiff-patient.  Meaning, the patient must have suffered some sort of loss.

These are just the general elements of a negligence claim founded in medical malpractice.  The experienced medical malpractice attorney will be familiar with your illness and the requisite protocols that medical professionals must follow in order to competently treat your aliment.  Such knowledge is not simply guesswork.

In fact, the medical profession as a whole, within specializations, and by geographic region propounds the proper standards of care that doctors must provide to patients.  If it is found that the doctor deviated from those standards, and another similarly situated doctor would not have deviated in such a way if he/she was in the same situation, the treating physician is said to be negligent.

Medical professionals expert in their respective fields will be able to support your claim so that a jury can show how there was a deviation in your treatment and how that deviation directly caused the pain and suffering from which you now suffer.

Pain and suffering is not the only harm from which you can receive compensation.  Medical treatment costs money, even if you have insurance.  Those expenditures that came out of your own pocket can be recovered from the doctor.  Lost wages are compensable, as is any loss in your ability to earn the level of income that you once enjoyed.  Your attorney will know what else you can recover.

Lastly, there is more than one way a medical professional can commit medical malpractice.  It can be from a failure to diagnose your sickness, a failure to properly/timely diagnose your illness, a surgical error, and even a post-surgical error.

But what do you think?  I would love to hear from you!  Leave a comment or I also welcome your phone call on my toll-free cell at 1-866-889-6882 or you can drop me an e-mail at jfisher@fishermalpracticelaw.com.  You are always welcome to request my FREE book, The Seven Deadly Mistakes of Malpractice Victims, at the home page of my website at www.protectingpatientrights.com.