Medical Malpractice - When a serious injury or death results because of failure to follow the known standard of care
Health Care Provider - Are to Listen to Patients and to Follow Standard Protocols
Medical professionals are not expected to save every life or cure every illness. But they are expected to listen to patients, to follow standard protocols and to “do no harm.”
Medical professionals are expected to supply a standard of care that ensures the safety and the health of their patients. Yet each year thousands of families suffer as a result of physician malpractice. This occurs when a doctor administers a treatment or makes a medical determination that is contrary to what a reasonable physician would choose, and the patient sustains injury or illness as a result. The additional expense of medical bills incurred by a negligent health care provider can be significantly beyond the means of the average person.
Sometimes doctors miss telltale signs. Sometimes they fail to follow up or rule things out. Sometimes they come to the wrong conclusion and order the wrong treatment. While misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis happen quite often, the errors can be tragic when the real diagnosis turns out to be the worst-case scenario.
Surgery is complicated and messy. Even the most skilled surgeons make mistakes, and juries are sometimes willing to forgive an honest slip of the knife. It's a different story when the surgical team makes sloppy errors or doesn't realize its mistakes, and the patient dies or suffers catastrophic injury.
There are inherent risks and often unforeseen complications in pregnancy and childbirth. But the obstetrician and the nurses are highly trained to anticipate potential problems and respond accordingly and follow protocols when the unexpected occurs.
Hospitals
The physician or surgeon may not be the person at fault when patients. Sometimes it is the staff of a hospital who failed to notify the doctor timely or allowed a condition to go untreated or undiagnoesd for to long which causes the patient to suffer serious harm. When nurses, technicians, pharmacists or administrators deviate from the standard of care, the hospital can be held responsible for malpractice.
Hospitals occupy an interesting place in American society and in the psychological landscape of people. They represent the destination for the sickest patients and those who suffer from an emergent condition, and so are terrifying because of it. Yet they also stand in the position to treat and heal the people who pass through their doors, making them a bastion of medical hope.
Tragically, in hospitals across the United States it is conservatively estimated that approximately 100,000 people die each year due to hospital malpractice. The number is staggering, and that does not even include people who suffer nonfatal injuries.
