Medical malpractice takes place due to negligent conduct by a healthcare professional. As a result, the patient receives substandard treatment, ultimately harming the patient and causing injury or even death in some cases. If you are a victim of medical malpractice, contact a personal injury lawyer in Roseville to take the required legal actions.
Some of the most commonly observed medical malpractices are:
- Misdiagnosis by a health care professional
Often, misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis occurs due to the incompetency of the doctor in charge. This further causes the negative progression of the disease and makes it more significant and fatal. This eventually leads to more pain suffered by the patient and complicates the treatment procedure as well. In the case of severe illnesses like cancer, inaccuracy or delay in the diagnosis process can be extremely harmful and cause the patient’s death.
- Surgical failure
Blunders by doctors during surgical procedures are commonly observed. There is a term for surgical errors known as “never events,” which denotes the type of error that should never occur. Medical professionals acknowledge these types of errors. Due to the obviousness of the negligent conduct by the healthcare provider, no expert testimony is required in such cases. Some common examples of such are the performance of surgery on the wrong part of the patient’s body, injury due to careless conduct, and post-surgery infections.
- Anesthesia errors
Anesthesia is an integral element of the surgical process. Despite that, it is often taken lightly by doctors. Errors due to an inaccurate supply of anesthesia can have serious consequences, ranging from brain injuries to possible death. Some instances of incompetency observed in anesthesiologists include failure in providing proper instruction to the patient before the procedure, inaccurate amount of anesthesia supply to the patient, failure in monitoring the patient, and usage of defective equipment.
- Medication errors
If the patient is provided with the wrong set of medication, the doctor, nurses, or any other healthcare professional involved in the case will be held liable for the consequences of the malpractice. The doctor will be liable for incompetency during the prescription process, while the nurse will be responsible for any mistakes made in the administration process. Prescription errors are often linked with misdiagnosis, leading to misprescription or wrong dosage.
- Injuries caused during birth
All the professionals involved in the procedure of childbirth must provide a standard level of healthcare. Failure in the treatment can have lifelong consequences for the newborn as well as the mother.