More than most relationships, the professional bond between patient and doctor demands total trust. Like everyone else, doctors make mistakes. However, unlike everyone else, a doctor’s error can endanger a patient’s health or even end their life. Blunders due to negligence or worse, willful misconduct, are deemed medical malpractice. Luckily, the law allows patients and their loved ones to hold these bad actors responsible.
Determining Types of Malpractice
Medical malpractice comes in many forms, and bad practitioners can commit multiple instances at once. The most common kinds of malpractice are failure to recognize or misdiagnosis Denver CO of a critical condition where immediate treatment is needed. Also, neglecting to give timely treatment or poorly performing such treatment are both clearly malpractice.
Alternatively, some physicians give seriously inappropriate treatments for existing conditions. Not only does such care not work, it can make patients’ problems much worse. The circumstances are aggravated when doctors don’t explain treatments or their possible side effects, thereby failing to receive a patient’s “informed consent” regarding their care.
Managing a Malpractice Claim
Dealing with reckless or careless physicians generally requires filing a civil suit. Legally, “malpractice” means a doctor acted outside the reasonable standards of care, and this incompetence directly caused a serious provable injury to the patient.
Given the complications involved, a seasoned medical malpractice lawyer is an indispensable resource. You can be sure your doctor will have one. Malpractice attorneys understand the medical bureaucracy and can quickly cut through the red tape to obtain relevant records. Your lawyer will also know, or know where to find, the necessary expert witnesses to testify on your behalf.
Ultimately, you may receive monetary damages for the damage done to you. Besides physical and emotional pain, damages include financial burdens such as lost wages and excess medical bills resulting from your doctor’s malpractice.
With our health in their hands, bad behavior from physicians is simply unacceptable. For the good of society, medical malpractice must be exposed to prevent future deeds by dangerous doctors.