If you believe that you have suffered an injury by poor care that you received from a medical professional, you may be entitled to substantial financial compensation in a malpractice case. Unlike other types of personal injury actions, you may not know for sure right off the bat that you have a claim for compensation. You might need more study and investigation before you may be in a position to know for sure that you have been the victim of medical malpractice. When you hire a medical malpractice attorney for your case, they will learn more about the facts and perform their own investigation to determine whether you may have grounds for a potential lawsuit.
Not Every Poor Treatment Result Is Considered Medical Malpractice
You do not have a medical malpractice case every time that you receive an adverse result that was not what you were expecting. There are times when a medical professional will do their absolute best, and you or a loved one will still not receive positive results. Medical malpractice is a very specific term with a definite meaning. Essentially, medical malpractice means that a professional has caused your injuries by not living up to the standard of care expected of them under the circumstances.
The Doctor Must Be Negligent for it to Be Considered Malpractice
Medical malpractice is a form of negligence, which is the standard that you must meet in every single personal injury case. You must show that someone else had a legal relationship with you that required them to live up to their duty of care. A medical professional who is providing you services has the necessary legal relationship that requires them to act as an ordinary person would under the circumstances. Doctors are held to the standard of the average professional in their field and are not expected to act like the preeminent expert in their field.
Proving that the medical professional breached the duty of care is one of the most difficult aspects of a medical malpractice case. You need to prove that the doctor failed to take an action that a reasonable medical professional would have when they were treating you. Alternatively, you will need to demonstrate that the doctor did something, but the action they took failed to live up to their duty of care.
You May Need to Reconstruct Your Medical Care to Discover Malpractice
You may not at first whether the doctor actually breached their duty of care. Although you did not get the results from your treatment that you hoped for, you may not know exactly what happened to cause your injuries. You may only learn that there was some type of negligence involved after you have hired a medical malpractice attorney to represent you. A medical malpractice attorney may work with expert witnesses to reconstruct exactly what happened. Then, the expert may give their own opinion about whether the doctor’s actions failed to live up to the duty of care.
The Carelessness Must Be the Cause of Your Injury for it to Be Malpractice
Even if the doctor breached the duty of care, it still does not mean that they were automatically negligent. Causation is a key element of any medical malpractice case. You must show that your injuries would not have happened had it not been for the actions of the medical professional. There are two causation tests that you must meet in a medical malpractice case:
- Direct causation is when your injuries would not have occurred but for the actions of the medical professional. For example, the failure to provide proper post-operative care can be the direct cause of a surgical infection.
- Proximate causation means that your injuries must have been a foreseeable result of the defendant’s conduct. Your injury may be one that could have never been foreseen by the medical professional as a result of their negligence
You may be up against a defendant who may argue that you would have suffered an injury anyway, regardless of what actions the doctor took. For example, if you had a failed surgical procedure, the doctor may argue that the negative results would have happened anyway, and nothing the medical professional did was the actual cause of what happened. You have to connect the defendant’s actions with your injury to become entitled to financial compensation.
A Jury Has the Final Say in Determining Whether the Doctor Committed Malpractice
In the end, it will be a jury who determines whether you truly have a case for medical malpractice. If you do not reach a settlement agreement with the defendant before your case reaches trial, a jury will hear the evidence that your medical malpractice attorney will put in front of them. This is presented in the form of records and witness testimony. In many cases, the defendant will realize that you have a case for medical malpractice before it can reach the point of a jury trial, and they will reach a settlement agreement compensating you for your injuries.
A Knowledgeable Medical Malpractice Attorney Is Standing By
The best way to begin to gain an understanding about whether you may have a medical malpractice case is to contact an attorney to schedule a free initial consultation. They will listen to your story and ensure you know your rights. A medical malpractice attorney will only accept your case if they believe there is a strong chance that you will receive compensation since the attorney works for you on a contingency basis.
Why is it so important to hire an attorney as soon as possible? Well, let’s consider the aftermath of a medical malpractice injury. You are injured and overwhelmed, and the insurance companies will immediately get involved and begin assessing the situation. Doctors and hospitals have big teams of adjusters and lawyers who will work tirelessly to minimize their liability and pay out as little as possible. Without legal representation from a seasoned McLean personal injury law firm, you may find yourself at a significant disadvantage.