The filing of a medical malpractice lawsuit initiates a procedure that normally ends with the holding of a trial. During that trial, a jury learns from an expert about the expected standard of care, and the alleged harm to the treated patient.
What constitutes adherence to a standard of care?
A level of care that rises to the same level as any treatment or other help that could come from a prudent healthcare professional. That same professional should have the same amount of experience and training as the defendant, the physician that has been charged with medical malpractice.
In addition, the expert must show that. under the same circumstances, a prudent healthcare professional would have delivered a specific and standard level of care. The jury would then be expected to compare that idealized quality of care to the caring treatment that had come from the defendant.
How could any jury be confident of an expert’s familiarity with the standard level of care?
In some states, the plaintiff must provide the court with an affidavit, one that has been signed by the expert witness, as per personal injury lawyer in Bowmanville. In any state, a former patient that wanted to file a medical malpractice lawsuit could ask a personal injury lawyer about the possible need for an affidavit.
What sorts of mistakes by physicians are known to cause harm to the affected patient?
• Failure to monitor the administration of anesthesia
• Mistakes in monitoring the heartbeat of an unborn infant during labor and delivery
• Leaving sponges or other medical equipment in the body of a surgical patient
• Giving medication to a patient that is known to have an allergic reaction to the same medication
• Inattention to patient that is confined to bed, and causing the formation of bedsores
• Allowing patient to get injured while under the care of medical personnel, including those tasked with job of lifting or moving patient
• Neglecting to note observable symptoms, and permitting creation of an incorrect diagnosis
A jury would hear details about what caused the reported harm to the plaintiff. The members of the jury would then need to determine whether or not a doctor’s negligence had caused that reported harm.
Every operation comes with the threat of certain risks, such as development of an infection. If a doctor’s negligence had caused formation of an infection at the site of a surgical scar, an expert might not admit to an absence of an acceptable standard of care.
In the absence of such an admission, the court would not receive sufficient proof of the alleged malpractice, as conducted by a given physician. As a result, the plaintiff/former patient might not be able to win proof of the charges, regarding medical malpractice.
