What is Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice occurs when a health care provider fails to give care according to the accepted standard practice of the medical community. As a result, the medical professionals must often pay for damages that result from medical malpractice. Medical malpractice is a controversial area of law, as medical professionals often offset the costs of medical malpractice lawsuits by charging higher health care costs to the consumer.

What is Medical Malpractice?

Medical malpractice can involve anything from slight injury to death of the patient. Have you ever heard of someone having a “botched” surgery? When a doctor makes a mistake in the surgery room, leaving the patient disfigured in a way that is unintentional in surgery, it is certainly considered medical malpractice. Some examples of medical malpractice can be even more serious: even deaths can be blamed on negligence from a doctor as well as a doctor’s mistake.

When establishing a medical malpractice suit, four specific criteria must be met:

• First, there must have been a legal duty owed by the medical professional to care and treat the patient.
• Second, there must have been a failure on the medical professional(s) behalf to conform to the standard of care relevant to the issue. This is judged based on what a reasonable doctor or medical professional would have done in the particular situation.
• Third, the failure to give good standard care – and thus, a breach of duty – must have caused an injury.
• The fourth and critical element is that there must be damages that result from the event. These damages include any harm or injury that resulted from the work of the medical practitioner

All health care providers are involved could potentially act as defendants in a medical malpractice case. This means physicians, pediatricians, nurses, surgeons, dentists and therapists can be involved in a medical malpractice claim. Medical professionals are insured with professional liability insurance. A plaintiff, usually the patient (or someone acting on behalf of the severely injured or dead patient) files the lawsuit against the defendant, the medical professional or professionals purportedly involved in the injury. The doctor or medical professional's insurance then defends the case.

Damages from a medical malpractice case can potentially include pain and suffering, actual losses such as medical bills to correct the error, lost wages, punitive damages, and wrongful death liability. Some states, including California for example, have placed limits on the amount of non-economic recovery, which means you cannot recover as much for pain and suffering or punitive damages resulting from medical malpractice.