In Florida and across the United States, there are laws that healthcare practitioners or bound to. These laws work to stipulate the duty of care owed to patients by medical professionals as they are defined by care standards.
If a medical professional deviates from these standards in a way that results in the injury or death of a patient, then that can be construed as medical malpractice.
Medical malpractice is something that happens more than people may think. However, to bring a successful medical malpractice claim in Florida, you must understand the types of errors that can count as medical malpractice.
Here are the five types of medical malpractice in Florida that you should seek legal help for if you’ve been impacted.
Delayed Diagnosis or Missed Diagnosis
When a medical professional misdiagnoses an illness, then the treatment cannot be received for the issue that could make a big impact on a patient’s life. It may be that by the time the correct diagnosis is finally given that the illness is too advanced to prevent serious harm or death.
A good example is a missed diagnosis of cancer. In some cases, the weeks or months wasted without the correct diagnosis can literally be life or death for the patient.
Diagnostic errors do happen, but it’s important to determine if the doctor used the same standards of diagnosis as any other experienced and proficient doctor would have in their specialty.
Injuries During Childbirth
Obstetricians pay some of the highest costs for liability insurance than any other specialty. That’s because a lot can go wrong during childbirth and the list of injuries that can be sustained due to negligence is long, even leading to complications for many women in the future.
Failure to properly anticipate complications, anticipate the need for a c-section, diagnose an underlying health issue of the mother, or failure to anticipate complications that can arise are all issues that can be addressed by a malpractice lawsuit.
Anesthesia Errors
Anesthesiologists have far higher medical malpractice premiums than other specialties because if they make an error in judgment, then it can lead to some very poor outcomes for patients.
If the patient’s medical history isn’t taken into account and medication is administered that they are allergic to, that is a clear error by the doctor. It is errors like this that can be covered by a medical malpractice claim.
Medication Errors
Speaking of medication errors, that is a big problem for many doctors who prescribe medications. There are a variety of ways they can occur, such as prescribing the incorrect amount or administering the wrong medication.
Medication errors made out of negligence are something that can be pursued with a medical malpractice claim.
Surgical Errors
When you have surgery, there is a certain level of risk that must be assumed by the patient that is solidified by the informed consent patients sign before a procedure is done.
In this document, you indicate that you are aware of the risks associated with surgery but give consent to treatment anyway. That doesn’t mean, however, that surgery complications are all on the patient.
If something goes wrong, such as a surgical instrument left in the body or the wrong body part operated on, then that’s a case for medical malpractice.
If you think you’ve been injured by medical malpractice, don’t just gloss it over.
You may deserve compensation.
About the Author:
Andrew Winston is a partner at the personal injury law firm of Winston Law. For over 20 years, he has successfully represented countless people in all kinds of personal injury cases, with a particular focus on child injury, legal malpractice, and premises liability. He has been recognized for excellence in the representation of injured clients by admission to the Million Dollar Advocates Forum and named one of America’s Top 100 High-Stakes Litigators. Mr. Winston is AV Preeminent Rated by the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, enjoys a 10.0 rating by AVVO as a Top Personal Injury Attorney, has been selected as a Florida “SuperLawyer” from 2011-2020 – an honor reserved for the top 5% of lawyers in the state – was voted to Florida Trend’s ”Legal Elite,” recognized by Expertise as one of the 20 Best Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorneys, named one of the Top 100 Lawyers in the Miami area for 2015-2017, and one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Florida for 2015-2017 and 2019.
