How to Prove Mistakes from What is and is NOT Written In Your Medical Records: Albany Medical Malpractice Lawyer

Proving Mistakes in Your Medical Records: Examples from an Albany Medical Malpractice Lawyer

Your medical records are important.  Not only does it provide your health information and what has been found, tested, or determined by a medical professional, but it also creates a record of what has transpired in your health.  It is a recording of your life’s health information.  It needs to be thorough and it needs to cover a lot of information.  It needs to reflect what is observed or performed by the healthcare professional.  And it can be used to determine when something is New York medical malpractice and not medical malpractice.  It can also be used to determine what was not done and could also be medical malpractice.  How?  Our Albany medical malpractice lawyer explains.

Medical Records As Tools in Your New York Medical Malpractice Case

Your medical records are the second most important part of your medical malpractice case—behind you, of course!  Your medical records are often what can expose mistakes.  But it is not necessarily what they say.  Sure, sometimes in medical records you will find that a doctor ordered 1500 ml of morphine when it should really be closer to 15 ml or lower.  This is a classic drug overdose and commonly medical malpractice.

But your medical records also explain what did not happen.  It is commonly said in hospitals and medical malpractice cases that “not documented, not done.”  This means that if a doctor did not put in the medical records that he or she did something, then the default presumption is that it was not done!

This is important in an operative report.  If an operative report does not say that the patient debrided some tissue which ends up getting infected, during a deposition a good Albany medical malpractice lawyer will have the doctor go through step-by-step the surgery.  If the doctor does not say he or she debrided, the lawyer can use that as direct evidence of negligence.  But if the doctor does say that he or she debrided the wound, the lawyer can ask why it isn’t in the operative report.  When the doctor says that he or she remembers doing it in this surgery, the lawyer can then ask how many surgeries a year, how often does this surgery occur, and how after all of these surgeries over all of these years can the surgeon remember?  Instant impeachment!  A jury will love this.

This is how your medical records can help prove your New York medical malpractice case.  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.