Why Does Medical Malpractice Happen?

Medical malpractice, when it occurs, often results in serious and lasting consequences for the victim. Whether it’s a misplaced object during surgery, a critical misdiagnosis, improper use of medical tools, or anything else, doctors and other medical professionals are expected to have the knowledge and training necessary to avoid these costly errors.

Proving medical malpractice, as shown by the legal statistics, is exceptionally difficult. In any medical malpractice lawsuit, four key points need to be proven in order to have a chance at securing the outcome you are looking for:

• The medical professional owed a duty of care to the victim
• That duty of care was breached
• That breach of care was directly responsible for the injury
• The injury in question was severe enough to result in long-term damage

There are myriad reasons why someone could look to file a medical malpractice claim, but many are borne out of making the choice to try a risky or potentially dangerous treatment in an attempt to manage a debilitating illness or injury. These types of cases make up a significant portion of unsuccessful medical malpractice claims — surgeons and emergency medical professionals are among the most often sued.

Despite the infrequency of a successful medical malpractice claim, it remains a serious issue. In many cases, the error was made away from one of these last-ditch life saving attempts. Instead, they happen in spaces where everything should have been routine or caught long before there was a serious issue in the first place. Some of the most common areas where medical malpractice claims can occur include:

• Misdiagnosis: According to a study conducted by Johns Hopkins, more than 100,000 Americans die or suffer a permanent disability because of missed medical diagnoses every year. These errors include missing initial conditions that should have been discovered, delaying a diagnosis, or diagnosing the entirely wrong issue. The most common misdiagnoses leading to long-term complications were misdiagnosed cancers, vascular events, and infections.
• Prescription errors: Prescribing the wrong medication can lead to minor issues in some cases but can also cause lasting damage and even death. The issues here range from prescribing the wrong dosage, failing to identify harmful interactions with other medication, a severe allergic reaction, and even prescribing the wrong medicine entirely.
• Birth injuries: Injuries to both the mother and infant during childbirth can have devastating implications for the rest of the victims’ life. Improper use of tools like vacuum extractors or forceps, failure to identify an issue during one of the pregnant mother’s checkups, mishandling the infant after birth, and more are all serious issues that often lead to medical malpractice cases.
• Surgical errors: Surgery is an extremely invasive form of treatment that can go wrong in a number of ways. Some of the most common ways a medical error can lead to lasting damage include clerical issues leading to surgery being performed on the wrong body part or patient, foreign object left inside the body during surgery, adverse reactions to anesthesia, and more.

Medical malpractice can happen for any number of reasons, but at the heart of many cases is simple negligence. Failure to fully assess a patient, poor handling of paperwork, reckless actions taken without proper care to the necessary steps, and more can all result in serious harm to a patient.

If you or someone you love suffered a serious injury due to medical malpractice, reach out to an experienced attorney today to learn more about your legal options. At Pittman Roberts & Welsh, PLLC, our Jackson medical malpractice lawyers are committed to providing the experienced and knowledgeable legal representation our clients need to secure the maximum compensation possible. Contact us today to schedule a free case evaluation and discuss your potential next steps.