Identifying Medical Malpractice Is The First Step To Recovery

The experienced Kingston, New York medical malpractice attorney knows that preventable medical errors injure patients every day in the Hudson Valley regions of New York State.  Yet, how often are these mistakes heard about?  The fact is that medical malpractice is very rarely discussed in the news, on TV, the radio, or internet.

It is no secret that doctors make mistakes, but it certainly seems like mistakes in the medical industry are being kept secret.  Part of this is because medical professionals are not required to tell patients about the medical mistakes they made while treating the patient.

Patients should beware of medical malpractice; the prevalence of medical negligence is much greater than most people realize.  For example, the Journal of Patient Safety reports that over four hundred thousand people are killed in the United States of America every year by acts of medical malpractice.

A small fraction of medical practitioners are responsible for over half of all acts of medical malpractice.  The question remains, is your doctor one of that small fraction?  Patients may think that finding out is easy; these negligent medical professionals must have been disciplined at some point.  Do not be so quick to think so.  As little as less than ten percent of doctors who lost medical malpractice cases go on to be disciplined by the medical profession.

Murphy’s Law states that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.  But this is just a mere adage, and it is not something about life that people should expect to live with.  Just because something can go wrong does not mean that it should go wrong.  Indeed, most medical mistakes are preventable.  If only the medical professional adhered to the standards of the profession, the patient would not have been injured.

Here is how doctors mess up and injure their patients:

• Failing to diagnose their patients timely or not at all with having:
  • Cancer
  • Diabetes
  • Infections
  • Among others
• Misdiagnosing patients – telling the patient they have a certain disease when it is actually a different disease from which the patient suffers.
• Wrong site surgery.
• Wrong patient surgery.
• Lack of informed consent.
• Prescribing the wrong medication and or the wrong dosage.
• Improper anesthesia administration.
• Leaving surgical objects such as needles, sponges, scalpels, gauze, etc. inside of patients; sewing up the surgical site leaving them inside the patient’s body.
• Failing to properly take care of the patient after surgery.

The list can go on and on, which is why it is so disappointing that more people are not aware of medical malpractice and their right to compensation when a medical professional harms patients.

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.