What Makes a Medical Malpractice Case?
Medical malpractice occurs when a patient suffers harm from a medical professional or institution. As such, a medical malpractice lawsuit can have the treating doctor, the hospital, a nurse, or a pharmacist as the defendant.
Suffering harm in the hands of a negligent medical professional does not guarantee automatic compensation. You must file a strong enough claim to convince the jury. This guide looks into the factors that make a medical malpractice case and can be a worthy read if you are navigating one or intend to file one.
Proving Negligence
A medical malpractice lawsuit only has standing if the victim can prove negligence on the defendant’s part. Negligence comprises four elements:
Duty of Care
It is the responsibility of medical professionals to ensure the safety of the patients. It begins when a patient checks into a hospital or a doctor’s office for treatment.
Breach of Duty
A breach of duty occurs when the doctor, hospital, or its staff fails to uphold their duty of care, meaning they fail to act in a manner a reasonable person in the same profession would under similar circumstances.
Causation
Causation is the causal link between a medical staff’s actions and the injuries suffered by patients. For example, if a doctor dismisses a symptom and fails to perform specific tests, which leads to more harm, their dismissing of the symptoms can help show causation.
Harm
Harm refers to the economic damages – such as lost wages and cost of treatment – and non-economic damages – such as pain and suffering – caused by the accident.
Evidence
Criminal and civil courts rely on evidence to decide on a case, so you will need as much relevant evidence as possible. Relevant evidence in a medical malpractice case can include medical records, pictures of the harm suffered, and journals of your journey following the accident.
Employment information indicating how an injury affected your ability to earn a living also acts as evidence. Witness testimonies are also critical. Witnesses to medical malpractice can include your caretaker, people close to you, family members, and personnel from the hospital if they are willing.
Expert Witnesses
Expert witnesses refer to experts in a subject matter who testify in your case. “Medical concepts can be complicated and out of the juror’s purview. So, having another medical professional break down the complex medical concepts in a way that the jurors will understand makes a big difference,” says attorney Russell Berkowitz of Berkowitz Hanna Malpractice & Injury Lawyers.
The key functions of an expert witness in a medical malpractice lawsuit include establishing the standard of care and how the defendant in your case breached it. Secondly, they help connect deviations from the standard of care to the injuries suffered.
Involving a Lawyer
Medical malpractice lawsuits are among the types of cases where the victim likely doesn’t stand a chance of winning if they are unrepresented due to the highly technical pieces of evidence required. Even if they do win without a lawyer, what they recover as compensation will probably not be close to what they deserve. Having a lawyer by your side can change that.