By When a medical professional fails to meet the standard of care for your condition and it causes you to suffer significant losses, such as permanent disfigurement or even death, you need a New York Medical malpractice lawyer. A skilled medical malpractice lawyer will review the facts of your case to determine whether you have a claim and then take steps to secure compensation on your behalf.
In many cases, the first step your attorney will take is to establish that the doctor or hospital personnel owed you a legal duty of care. Your attorney will then try to ascertain what that standard of care was, and then show how the medical professionals breached their duty by failing to provide that level of care.
One of the most common types of medical malpractice is failure to diagnose a disease or illness. This can include failing to order the appropriate tests, not paying attention to a patient’s symptoms, not properly interpreting test results, or not referring the patient to a specialist in time. It is estimated that this type of medical malpractice accounts for 4 percent of all malpractice claims.
Another common form of medical malpractice is surgical errors. Injuries from surgical errors can be severe and may affect your quality of life in a number of ways. This can include infections, spinal cord injuries, and permanent paralysis. In addition to these serious injuries, some surgeries can result in complications like amputations and limb deformities.
It is the responsibility of every healthcare provider to communicate any risks associated with a procedure to their patients. This is especially important for more complicated procedures, such as organ transplants and surgeries involving the brain or heart. Doctors are also required to get informed consent from their patients prior to performing a surgery or medical procedure, and this consent must be given voluntarily. When doctors fail to adequately inform their patients of the risks involved in a procedure, they can be guilty of malpractice.
While the financial costs of medical malpractice can be considerable, it is also important to consider the non-monetary costs that a victim can receive. These are often referred to as non-economic damages and they can be difficult for an untrained eye to quantify. Non-economic damages may include a victim’s pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and even the cost of emotional distress or loss of companionship.
Because a medical malpractice lawsuit involves allegations of negligence, both plaintiffs and defendants will hire expert medical witnesses to review the details of the case and provide opinions about whether the doctor met or exceeded the standard of care for their medical specialty. The experts will also try to determine if the negligence directly led to the patient’s losses. When both parties agree that the negligence did in fact cause the losses, they will begin negotiating a settlement offer. It is generally accepted that these settlements will be less than what the victim would have received in a jury trial.
