Medical errors or misdiagnosis can be very dangerous and scary, and this negligence can lead to a more severe diagnosis down the road. A medical error is the result of an adverse effect of care by healthcare professionals or physicians which was preventable.
Cancer is one of the medical conditions that can be incorrectly diagnosed. If your doctor has evaluated your symptoms incorrectly or failed to test for your symptoms to accurately determine your condition, this is called “failure to diagnose,” and is unfortunately common form of medical malpractice.
Negligence in the medical practice is the result of any professional conduct or practice that does not meet the most commonly known and used standards of the practice of medicine. Medical negligence can lead to injuries, huge medical bills, and even death. Failure to diagnose is part of a larger part of law known as medical malpractice.
According to the National Institute of Health, medical malpractice is part of tort law, which covers general professional negligence and is defined as “any act or omission by a physician during treatment of a patient that deviates from accepted norms of practice in the medical community and causes an injury to the patient.”
Examples of Potential Medical Malpractice include:
- Birth injuries, such as Cerebral Palsy and Erb’s Palsy
- Surgical errors, including unnecessary surgeries, leaving items in a patient, and surgery on the wrong patient or body part
- Failure to properly diagnose
- Delay to treat or failure to treat a diagnosed condition
- Pharmacy errors with medications
- Nerve injuries
- Emergency room errors
- Errors with anesthesia
- Dental malpractice
- Brain injuries
- Some cancers
- Nursing home abuse
- Wrongful death
While scary, it is an unfortunate fact that preventable medical mistakes are the third leading cause of death in the United States, behind cancer and heart disease. Up to 400,000 preventable deaths happen in hospitals each year, which does not include the additional 10,000 cases where patients experienced serious complications or side effects from medical errors which happen each day not resulting in death.
If you or someone you love has been a victim of medical errors, whether on the part of the hospital, doctor, nurse or other healthcare staff, it is extremely important that you find the best advocate possible for your case. The Ashley Law Firm is experienced in working on medical malpractice cases and winning the money our clients need to pay for rehabilitation, medical bills and expenses, ongoing treatment and therapies, lost wages, and pain and suffering.
If you suspect you have been a victim of medical malpractice, you need to work with a NYC medical malpractice attorney who can understand your medical records and procedures, is knowledgeable regarding the healthcare and insurance systems, and knows how to navigate the complex world of medical malpractice law.
Some of our recent cases include:
- Our client, a 58 year-old Vietnam veteran, walked on his own into an ambulance to go to the hospital to be treated for an illness. Due to the hospital’s negligence, our client contracted bedsores, which left him unable to walk and he became confined to a wheelchair. At the end of a month-long trial the jury awarded our client $5,400,000 in damages.
- In a spectacular failure to correctly diagnose the issue, our client suffered a painful ruptured appendix, which went undiagnosed by doctors for an extended time. As a direct result of the undiagnosed rupture and effects afterward, our client suffered brain damage. A jury awarded our client $3,800,000 in damages.
- The Ashley Law Firm successfully represented a child who was forced to live with Cerebral Palsy simply because the labor and delivery doctors failed to recognize her mother’s delivery was not proceeding correctly. They then failed to perform a timely caesarean section. The jury’s verdict for our client came to $2,275,000, and working with the family post-settlement, attorney Mitchel Ashley set up a supplemental needs trust fund to provide for the young victim’s needs for the rest of her life.
- In a case of severe negligence, an infant was born with brain damage after the mother’s doctors failed to perform a necessary caesarean section birth in a timely manner. Due to this negligence, the child suffers and we collected compensation for the family of $2,500,000.
- Our client was a young man who went to the dentist for the routine procedure of having his wisdom teeth extracted. The dentist then failed to extract all of the tooth and did not properly give antibiotics in a timely manner to prevent infection and damage. The young man suffered permanent cognitive loss and we recovered $1,000,000 for him.
Mistakes by healthcare professionals and physicians can have serious and permanent effects on their innocent patients. They can lead to loss of income from being unable to work, long-term medical treatment and therapy needs, extremely expensive medical bills and other expenses, and pain and suffering. They have also led to loss of life.
Doctors are human and mistakes can be made. However, they and their colleagues and employer must be held responsible for errors leading to the pain and suffering of patients. In order to bring the responsible parties to judgment, several things must be true.
Our medical malpractice lawyers must prove:
- The healthcare professional or hospital violated a duty of care.
- There was negligence involved in the care provided, meaning what occurred was not something another professional would have done or failed to have done according to accepted standards of care.
- The condition or general prognosis of the patient was worse as a result of the treatment given or denied.
- The effects of the treatment caused specific harm to the patient, such as physical, cognitive, or financial loss from being unable to work or lead a productive life.
Medical malpractice can be difficult to prove, as most doctors and hospitals require their patients sign waivers acknowledging the risks involved in procedures. It is imperative that you secure an experienced medical negligence or medical malpractice attorney who understands both the legal and medical fields in order to get you the compensation you deserve. The Ashley Law Firm is very experienced in these cases and will have compassion for your situation and fight to get you everything you are legally due.
