(Newswire.net — March 1, 2017) — Medical negligence is unfortunately the third most common death cause in the US. The only causes that are more often met are cancer and heart diseases. Because of this, it should be no surprise to see that medical malpractice lawsuits are increasing in numbers right now. Around 4 billion dollars were offered in 2014 as compensation for these cases. Hiring a malpractice attorney has been proven to offer more money in the lawsuits but when do you really want to hire these specialists?
Misdiagnosis
Many cases handled by malpractice attorneys are a result of doctors failing to diagnose a very serious condition or a disease is misdiagnosed. Patients would end up being harmed by any treatment delay. Due to this, a valid negligence claim would be established. Attorneys basically have to demonstrate the fact that a regular competent physician would have not made the mistake that happened when proper procedure is respected. Not following the established guidelines is now the most common of the reasons why plaintiffs win the cases.
Anesthesia Errors
Anesthesia errors are particularly dangerous since the result would be much worse than even a surgical mistake. Slight miscalculations can actually be deadly or would result in very serious injuries. Doctors are making errors in this case if:
- Patient medical history is not checked to see if there are possible complications, illnesses or allergies that were documented.
- Too much anesthesia is administered.
- Preoperative instructions are not given to the patient.
- Vital signs are not properly monitored.
- Patients are not correctly intubated.
- Faulty equipment is used.
Childbirth Injuries
If there are mistakes made during childbirth, children and mothers can end up with highly serious injuries. Children can end up with cerebral palsy, brain damage, fractured bones and various other problems. Mothers normally end up with infections, fissures, vaginal tears and sometimes wrongful death. Experienced malpractice attorneys need to go through an investigation in order to see exactly who is responsible for what happened during childbirth.
Prescription Problems
70% of US citizens take at least one prescription drug. With this in mind, it is normal to say that errors are quite inevitable. Medication mistakes would happen in so many different ways ranging from improper drug administration to incorrect prescriptions. Patients can be faced with serious problems. Experts say that improper dosage is the most common of all the mistakes that would appear but there are many others that would require the help of a medical malpractice attorney.
Surgical Mistakes
Last but not least, no matter how experienced a surgeon is, serious errors are made from time to time. In most situations the errors will not be intentional. However, they are quite clear negligence signs. The common surgical mistakes that warrant hiring a medical malpractice attorney include leaving surgical instruments inside the patient’s body, organ puncturing and even doing an operation on a wrong part of the body. Glaring blunders will be very hard to defend so going to court is definitely something that would happen. Most of these cases will be won by the plaintiffs.