If you have developed a medical problem while under a doctor’s care, you may feel entitled to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. Before you allow your emotions to direct your actions, be sure that you can provide evidence of one of two possible failures. Could you charge the doctor that seems to have harmed you with negligence? That is careless and neglectful behavior.
If you would not feel comfortable charging the particular physician with negligence, then perhaps he or she was guilty of a second offense, one that falls into the same category as the other instances of medical malpractice. Did he or she fail to get a patient’s informed consent, before going forward with a given procedure? If the patient was a child, did he or she fail to get the parents’ consent, before conducting a procedure on their son or daughter?
If, after studying those questions, you continue to feel that you have become the victim of a doctor’s chargeable error, then take the next step. Contact an attorney. Consult with that lawyer and see if you truly have a valid claim.
What you can expect a lawyer to ask about during a consultation
When you meet with a Personal Injury Lawyer in Burlington, they will seek to determine whether or not your doctor’s actions demonstrated a willingness to ignore a duty of care towards patients. Did your doctor fail to attend to a patient’s need? If the answer is no, then consider this question: Did your doctor fail to diagnose a disorder, after studying the available test results and examining you or a different patient?
If you cannot say that your doctor ignored his or her duty of care, then perhaps you feel that he or she willingly breached that same duty of care. Did that breach take the form of an incorrect diagnosis? Did the doctor’s duty get breached when he or she failed to review patient records or to speak with other doctors about a considered diagnosis?
Did the doctor’s readiness to breach duty cause injury to a patient, perhaps to you? For instance, did a surgeon operate on the wrong body part? Did the group of professionals in the surgery room allow an incision on a surgical patient to become infected?
Did the injury caused by the doctor allow a patient to suffer damages? For example, was a patient not warned about the possible side effects from a given medication or a specific test? Evidence of that would strengthen a claim that a specific doctor had been guilty of medical malpractice.
A word of caution
Be sure that you do not try to equate an error in judgment with performing an act that qualifies as medical malpractice. Such a charge will only be recognized in a court of law if you can offer proof that no reasonable physician would ever make a decision like the one that was made by your doctor.
