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We put our trust in doctors during our times of greatest need. Unfortunately, that trust is sometimes not duly earned, as medical professionals commit acts of professional negligence on a shockingly frequent basis.
Medical malpractice claims involve a provider who has caused you or a loved one harm by not following the standards of care enforced by their profession. A successful claim can help you recover money lost from procedures and hospitalizations that would have otherwise been avoided had your provider followed the needed level of care.
The CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm is dedicated to helping victims like you recover as much as they can following their medical injury. Our Dalton medical malpractice attorneys will seek to document standards of care, uncover evidence of deviations from those standards, and then accurately estimate the full extent of medical, financial, and personal harm from which you have suffered.
When you are ready to start pursuing a claim against a negligent provider, we are here to listen. Call us today at (833) 254-2923 or contact us online to schedule a free, no-obligation case review with an experienced medical malpractice lawyer in Dalton.
What Does a Dalton Medical Malpractice Attorney Need to Prove for My Case to Succeed?
To succeed in a medical malpractice case, your attorney must prove that a special form of professional negligence has taken place.
Typical negligence claims aim to show that the party accused of causing damages deviated from a specific duty of care. Usually, their deviation involves violating some law or acting in a manner an ordinary, reasonable person would know would be dangerous.
A common example would be someone who changes lanes without first looking in all their mirrors and blind spots, as these actions can clearly lead to an unexpected collision.
In a medical malpractice case, there may be much more technical or subtle deviations that take place, as medical professionals are governed by more specific standards of care. These standards apply to both physicians and care provider facilities.
Four Main Parts of a Malpractice Claim
Your attorney will investigate your case, including your entire history of treatment with the provider, in order to uncover definitive evidence that a violation of a standard of care took place.
More specifically, they will try to demonstrate four main provings:
- A specific professional standard of care applied to a provider-patient situation
- This standard of care was not met, including through an improper action or a failure to take an expected action
- The deviation from the standard of care directly led to harm to the patient
- The patient suffered damages because of the medical injury they received
Importantly, the harm a patient suffered must have occurred most directly because of the deviation from the standard of care. There are many medical situations where a patient case turns out badly — potentially even fatal — despite the providers following every expected standard of care.
Further, a physician or other provider can make what would be considered a mistake, such as failing to diagnose a condition or diagnosing the wrong condition, and not be found to have committed malpractice so long as others in their profession would agree that they would have taken the same action.
Proving malpractice becomes tricky, then, and often requires consultations with expert witnesses and others in the medical profession.
What Constitutes a Medical Injury?
To be eligible for a malpractice claim, some form of preventable harm must have occurred. Often, this harm is referred to as a “medical injury.”
A medical injury resulting from malpractice can involve any of the following:
- The patient developed a new, harmful medical condition
- The patient’s current condition became worse because of improper treatment, requiring further care than would have been necessary had malpractice not occurred
- The patient suffered a direct injury, such as being dropped during transport
- The patient endured a dangerous hardship because of a lack of proper care, such as a nursing home patient who was not provided with fluids for several days
- The patient had an adverse interaction after being prescribed a drug that they should not have been given
- The patient endured an unnecessary procedure that significantly affects their health condition, such as having surgery performed on the wrong organ or appendage
- The patient’s condition became worse because of a failure to diagnose or the assignment of an inaccurate diagnosis
- A patient was not provided with the needed informed consent disclosures to make a reasonable care decision with all risks in mind
Does Any Bad Outcome Qualify as Malpractice?
Providers can often fail to effectively treat a patient’s condition. In most instances, this unfortunate scenario can be chalked up to the fact that medicine is challenging, and there are no guarantees.
There is always a chance of an adverse outcome in any patient case, even when doing something as simple as prescribing aspirin for a headache.
Unfortunately, the uncertainty of medicine can mean that claimants can have little recourse if, for example, a heart surgery fails to prevent another heart attack that later kills the patient. All medical procedures involve risks, and one of the biggest risks is that the treatment provided will not effectively cure or improve the patient’s condition (Note: providers must disclose all risks to you in an informed consent briefing, and if one did not take place then they may be liable for undisclosed adverse effects).
Doctors and others on their staff are instructed to take the steps that make the most sense, given what they know about the patient and what common options they are presented with. If they have incomplete information, or if they choose an option that most others in their profession would also have picked, then it doesn’t matter how bad things turn out; they may never be found to have committed an act of malpractice.
However, if the provider failed to act in a way that was expected or in a way that others would in the same situation, and that is what caused the patient harm, then that can constitute malpractice.
Who Can Be Accused of Malpractice?
Employers and physicians presiding over a medical case hold responsibility for negligent acts. Both groups are expected to properly train and supervise other lower-ranking care professionals, such as nurses and orderlies.
If a nurse, nurse’s assistant or even a custodian working in the building somehow causes medical harm, then the allegation of malpractice falls upon the physician or provider organization that should have been watching over them.
More specifically, Georgia law (OCGA § 9-11-8) states that a medical malpractice claim can pursue damages for any injury or death involving:
- A) Health, medical, dental, or surgical service, diagnosis, prescription, treatment, or care rendered by a person authorized by law to perform such services or by any person acting under the supervision and control of a lawfully authorized person; or
(B) Care or service rendered by any public or private hospital, nursing home, clinic, hospital authority, facility, or institution, or by any officer, agent, or employee thereof acting within the scope of his employment.
What Evidence Is Used to Prove Malpractice?
The evidence needed to build a malpractice case can vary, but the most important evidence will always be the input of expert witnesses.
According to the American Bar Association, when cases go to trial, “a jury will consider testimony by experts — usually other doctors, who will testify whether they believe your physician’s actions followed standard medical practice or fell below the accepted standard of care.”
Other evidence will look at the specific actions (or inactions) taken by the provider. At the onset of your case, your attorney will go through your entire treatment history with the provider from the first time they saw you as a patient.
Your lawyer will then review all available records, including visit documentation, discharge papers, test results, imaging, dictations, prescriptions, and anything else that can be obtained.
Something as simple as a nurse forgetting to dispense medication one time can harm or kill a patient. To review for possible deviations from standards of care, your attorney will also seek to review records from the provider and/or presiding physician.
These records can include duty rosters, nurse’s logs, timeclock logs, and even training materials provided to staff.
Often, a pattern of negligence can be established, demonstrating that the type of harm suffered by the patient would have been inevitable given the provider’s lapse in following medical standards. But even in situations where harm was inflicted by a single mistake or lapse in good practice, the provider can still be considered at fault.
What Damages Can Be Sought in a Malpractice Case?
Every malpractice case is unique but will likely involve the pursuit of the following types of damages:
- Medical care costs for treatments and procedures made necessary because of the medical injury inflicted by the malpractice
- Lost wages and benefits, as measured by the projected difference (temporary or permanent) when comparing what the patient could have earned without the medical injury compared to what they are able to earn now
- Pain and suffering endured by the patient
- Out-of-pocket expenses related to the medical injury, such as the costs of modifying a home to accommodate a hospital bed
- Wrongful death damages, including the costs of funeral and burial, if the victim’s medical injury proves fatal
Can I See if My Doctor Has Previous Malpractice Claims Against Them?
The Georgia Composite Medical Board does not provide details of malpractice complaints or investigations as a matter of public record. However, patients and their families can sometimes see if there was a judgment or publicly disclosed settlement related to a malpractice claim when they look up their provider’s license.
Contact a Dalton Medical Malpractice Law Firm to Start Working on Your Case
Time is of the essence in medical malpractice cases, as there is just a two-year statute of limitations window in which to file your claim. Assembling these cases takes time, so to give your claim the highest chance of succeeding, it is best to start working on it today.
Hiring an experienced medical malpractice attorney in Dalton gives you the legal knowledge and resources needed to start building such a claim, with much less time and effort required on your part. You should be focused on healing, so let the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm help manage your case from start to finish.
We’ll rigorously investigate your provider and accurately estimate the full extent of damages you have suffered and will suffer because of your unfortunate medical injury. Find out more about how to start your claim and how much your case could be worth when you call (833) 254-2923 or contact us online today to schedule your free case review.