Modern medical malpractice
Medical malpractice occurs when a doctor, hospital, or other healthcare professional is negligent when it comes to providing appropriate treatment, gives substandard treatment or care, or fails to take an appropriate action that results in harm, injury, or even death to a patient.
According to a recent study conducted by Johns Hopkins, more than 250,000 people in the U.S. die each year from serious harm resulting from preventable mistakes made by doctors or other healthcare providers. Other studies report the number of deaths to be closer to 440,000, and that’s without considering the millions more who suffer as a result of malpractice.
Negligence is the hallmark of medical malpractice cases. The good news is that most simple errors are prevented due to advances in medicine, the use of modern technology for the purpose of testing and diagnosis, and hospital-mandated disclosure of surgical risks.
Even so, some of the most common types of modern medical malpractice consist of errors due to:
- Misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose
- Medication errors
- Surgical and anesthesia mistakes
- Failure to take a thorough case history of a patient
- Lack of experience on the part of the doctor or other healthcare professional
- Premature discharge
- Cosmetic surgery errors resulting in disfigurement
- ER errors due to rushed procedures
The goal of medical malpractice lawsuits is to get compensation for the victims of these errors including medical expenses, loss of income, pain, and suffering.
Technology and confusion
While traditional medical malpractice cases by and large involve the negligent acts of doctors or other healthcare professionals, many cases of modern medical malpractice are the result of medical equipment failures. These types of errors can also prove to be serious or even catastrophic.
An example of this is a case of a two-year old whose death was caused by a fatal dose of sodium chloride administered intravenously along with chemotherapy drugs. The day that she was administered her fatal dose the pharmacy computer was not working properly in addition to a hospital pharmacy that was short-staffed and dealing with a backlog of doctors’ orders.
With the increased reliance of doctors and other healthcare providers on high tech medical equipment such as robotic surgical tools, external and internal defibrillators, diagnostic radiation machines, and computerized medical records comes another added risk for medical errors. The question then becomes who bears the liability for the errors?
Making things right
There’s no doubt that technological advances in medicine have increased the duration as well as the quality of life of modern patients. However, failing to ameliorate technological risks also leads to preventable medical mistakes and adds another factor to modern medical malpractice.
If you have suffered serious medical injuries due to negligence on the part of a healthcare professional, defective medical device, or AI technology, contact the office of Scott S. Harris, medical malpractice attorney in San Diego, to schedule a free case evaluation.