Five Things You Want to Know About Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice is a term that covers a wide variety of injuries caused by medical errors. While most people are familiar with the term “medical malpractice,” many are not aware of what actually constitutes medical malpractice or the complexities involved in pursuing these cases. Below, we have outlined five important points you need to know about this unique area of the law.

1. What is Medical Malpractice?

Medical malpractice occurs when healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, emergency personnel and pharmacists, provide treatment to a patient that falls short of the standard of care and causes injury to the patient. Standard of care is tricky term that generally means the level of care a prudent medical provider in a given community would provide.  

Failing to abide by the proper standard of care can take many forms. Typically, medical providers are found to have committed malpractice because of medical errors. These can be anything like performing an operation on the wrong part of the body, making mistakes during surgery, prescribing the wrong medication, failing to diagnose a condition like cancer or another serious illness, and failing to provide proper aftercare to a patient. Providers may also be found to have committed medical malpractice by failing to keep up with developments in medicine, failing to use common equipment or tests, or failing to be aware of the risks posed by certain types of equipment. The bottom line is, in each case, the provider’s care must fall short of the accepted standard of care and cause an injury to the patient.

For example, the Penn State Hershey Medical Center recently settled a medical malpractice case for $2.4 million dollars after failing to perform a biopsy ordered by a woman’s gynecologist. This failure delayed a diagnosis with cancer until it was too late.

2. How Often Does Medical Malpractice Occur?

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine recently concluded that medical error could be considered the 3rd leading cause of death in the United States. The researchers estimated more than 250,000 people die each year as a result of medical malpractice.

Unfortunately, this does not even come close to revealing the amount of medical malpractice that occurs in the U.S. Many cases of malpractice are not fatal and therefore were not included in the study. Accurate estimates of personal injuries caused by medical malpractice are hard to come by, but many studies put the numbers in the hundreds of thousands.

Even those studies cannot paint a complete picture, as many patients may not ever realize they’ve been victims of malpractice, either because the provider is able to cover his or her tracks, or the patient’s symptoms are never tied to the malpractice. These cases go unreported and cannot be tracked by researchers.  

3. What Are the Most Common Types of Medical Malpractice?

The varieties of medical malpractice are too numerous to name.  The most common medical errors are:

-Failure to Diagnose: These errors occur when medical providers fail to recognize a patient’s symptoms are indicative of a serious or terminal condition, such as cancer, stroke, appendicitis or necrotizing fasciitis.

-Anesthesia Errors: Anesthesia comes with serious risks, and adverse events are common. Providers may fail to consider the interaction of a particular anesthetic with medications a patient is taking or may administer too large a dose. The FDA recently warned that the use of general anesthesia on children under 3 years may cause abnormal development of children’s brains.

-Surgical Errors: Surgery has its own inherent risks. However, these risks are compounded when surgeons fail to exercise proper care, leading to damage to internal organs, hemorrhaging and other complications. The millions of surgical procedures occurring each year can only increase the odds that something goes wrong.

-Birth Injuries: Errors made during the birth of a child can have a devastating impact on the child and parents.  Failure to monitor and recognize signs of stress in the mother or child and failures in delivering the child can lead to serious complications, such as Erb’s palsy, fractures, cephalohematoma, and death.

4. How Can You Reduce Your Exposure to Medical Malpractice?

Be vigilant. Patients should educate themselves to learn about the conditions they are facing and the doctors treating them. Make use of educational resources like the Mayo Clinic’s website.

Patients should also make sure they monitor their symptoms and seek appropriate care if they suspect something is wrong. If you feel your doctor is not telling you the whole story, or if you feel your symptoms are being ignored or downplayed, seek out a second opinion.

It is important to “listen to your body” and to speak up when something seems out of place.  Doing so may just save your life.

Lastly, do not be afraid to ask questions and make your medical providers explain their actions.  It is all too easy for patients to be intimidated by their doctors and hospitals.

While you certainly should appreciate your doctor’s education and experience, it is important that you use common sense and advocate for yourself. If you have trouble, consider involving family members or friends.  

5. What Should You Do If You Suspect You Are a Victim of Malpractice?

DO NOT DELAY!  You should contact an experienced attorney immediately. Medical malpractice cases require an extraordinary amount of investigation.

Your attorney may need to obtain and review thousands of pages of medical records. Those records will also need to be reviewed by an expert.

This is an expensive and time-consuming process that must begin as soon as possible to determine whether you have a claim. You also need an attorney with a thorough knowledge of the practice of medicine and the resources necessary to take the case to trial.  

Additionally, as we’ve stated in our previous blogs on medical malpractice, the law limits the time in which you may bring a lawsuit for medical malpractice. According to the Statute of Limitations in Pennsylvania, you typically have only two years to bring a medical malpractice suit against the provider who caused your injuries.

There are circumstances where the Statute of Limitations may be “tolled” (that is, extended) if you could have reasonably known of or discovered the condition within the Statute of Limitations. However, this is an incredibly complex, fact-specific inquiry that will need to be assessed by a competent attorney.

We Are Here to Help

At the Law Office of Alvin F. de Levie, Esq., we have decades of experience handling cases for those who have suffered catastrophic injuries as a result of medical malpractice throughout the Commonwealth. We have handled cases from Philadelphia. If you need legal advice or representation, give us a call today at (844) 777-2529.