Everything You Need To Know About Medical Negligence

Suffering an injury or getting hurt in a healthcare setting can have a lasting effect on the health of the afflicted individual. When this happens, it’s natural to wonder whether the medical professional can be held liable for their actions.

Unfortunately, medical malpractice cases are rarely clear-cut, and it takes extensive legal knowledge to prove that the medical professional in question acted negligently. 

So how can you prove medical negligence in the legal setting and recover compensation?

Let’s go over the basics.

What makes proving negligence challenging?

Medical malpractice falls under the umbrella term of a personal injury, and it’s the most challenging type of personal injury case. Because modern medicine is specialized and highly technical, it makes it significantly harder to prove a medical professional acted negligently, especially when compared to proving the same in accidents such as vehicle collisions.

Think of it this way: medical specialists have years of training under their belt and often rely on complex methods and sophisticated tools to properly diagnose and treat their patients. As such, even deciphering the information contained in patient records is tricky, let alone calling into question the actions of trained care personnel. 

This means you’ll have to hire an attorney who specializes in these types of cases. A malpractice case can have a devastating effect on a physician’s career, so you’ll need someone with plenty of experience in dispelling the most common malpractice defenses. 

Furthermore, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate how the liable party failed to provide a level of care and skill another medical professional of the same skill set would have in similar circumstances. 

It’s also worth pointing out that even if you suffered harm during a medical procedure, it still doesn’t mean that malpractice occurred. This is due to the fact that malpractice hinges on a medical professional falling beneath the approved standard of care, which directly led to your injuries. 

To prepare a malpractice lawsuit, an attorney representing the plaintiff must first obtain the necessary medical records. Then, they must hire an independent medical expert who will review the documentation, thus helping identify whether a breach of the standard of care occurred.

The medical expert may also provide the required certificate of merit that ascertains your claim is legally valid. Once all the building blocks are in place, the attorney can send a notice to the liable parties named in the action, along with the certificate of merit at least thirty days before the lawsuit is filed. 

How can you prove medical negligence?

In order to meet the standards of medical malpractice, your attorney must successfully prove that the following elements apply to your case:

1. Existence of a doctor-patient relationship

For a medical professional to have a duty of care to you, the doctor-patient relationship must be established. Out of all elements, this one is the easiest to prove because you only need to provide the medical records that indicate the medical professional in question treated you. In other words, just the fact you sought treatment from them is proof enough that they owed you a duty of care. 

2. Breach of duty of care

As described earlier, your attorney must demonstrate that a medical professional provided you with care that wasn’t standard. For instance, a doctor may have deviated from the standard testing procedures and as a result, misdiagnosed a patient’s colon cancer as IBS. 

To put it differently, since the treatment fell below the standard of care, the injury wouldn’t have happened under the care of a medical specialist with a similar skill set. 

In the legal context, the attorney must retain a medical expert who can testify in court as to what accepted standards of care are for a particular medical scenario. 

3. Causation

Proving causations means showing there’s a direct link between the doctor’s negligence and the harm you suffered. For example, if a patient suffers a stroke following surgery, they must prove that the surgery is what led to the stroke and not an underlying condition. 

Witness testimony and expert witness statements may help establish causation. 

4. Damages

The last element of a medical malpractice case is damages. Meaning, you must have suffered damages as a result of a physician’s negligence.

Just because a doctor was negligent doesn’t mean you have a valid malpractice claim. Take the following scenario as an example:

You went to a doctor complaining of stomach pain and they prescribed you the wrong medication after establishing an incorrect diagnosis. A miracle happens and the medication in question eliminates your symptoms. How can you prove medical negligence in this case?

Even though negligence is clear as day, it doesn’t matter. Your malpractice case will be invalid because you didn’t suffer damages as a result of the negligence. Basically, ‘no harm done’ kind of a deal. 

Damages in the field of malpractice can be:

• Permanent injuries or damage to your health
• Lost income
• Loss of ability to earn income
• Medical costs
• Scarring and disfigurement
• Mental trauma
• Loss of enjoyment of life

Any of the above will meet the standards of medical malpractice and allow you to recover financial losses. 

What are your chances of winning the case?

So now that we’ve explained how can you prove medical negligence, you're probably wondering how probable it is that you’ll win the case.

According to data collected over the last two decades, most patients lose their cases even if they have the evidence to back up their claims. With weak evidence, physicians won in 90% of trials. More concerningly, strong evidence doesn’t ensure a positive outcome as 50% of physicians won the case despite all the evidence against them. 

Lastly, medical professionals who demonstrated behaviors judges designated as indefensible won 58% of the time. 

This goes to show that cases aren’t won on evidence alone, but rather on preparation and the experience of the legal team. 

Choose the right attorney and beat the odds

You may have a foolproof case on your hands and can clearly demonstrate how a physician harmed you. Yet, your entire malpractice suit could come crashing down if you hire an incompetent attorney. 

This is why you have to pick only the finest malpractice attorneys working in Florida right now - Sowell Chakour. 

In our extensive career, we managed to consistently deliver the best outcome to our clients (some being even multimillion settlements). How?

Simple - one of our leading attorneys is a surgeon, which means they brought unprecedented insider knowledge to all of our malpractice cases so far. Since this allows us to view things from the defendant’s perspective, we can easily anticipate all the strategies they may employ during the trial - swiftly flipping the tables and allowing you to achieve the best possible outcome. 

Schedule a free case evaluation by calling (833) 633-6257 or filling out our contact form.

Note: 

The information in this blog post is for reference only and not legal advice. As such, you should not make legal decisions based on the information in this blog post. Moreover, there is no lawyer-client relationship resulting from this blog post, nor should any such relationship be implied. If you need legal counsel, please consult a lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.