We place a significant amount of trust in medical professionals during difficult times when dealing with medical concerns. Patients are commonly in vulnerable positions related to medical concerns and may not know if they are receiving enough information to make a good and informed medical decision or may fear they are receiving treatment without knowing all of the risks associated with the particular treatment.
How common is medical malpractice?
In general it is important to understand what medical malpractice is and the protections victims injured or otherwise harmed by medical malpractice have available to them. You may also wonder how common medical malpractice is. Medical malpractice refers to the professional negligence of healthcare professionals such as doctors, nurses, hospitals and others. When a healthcare professional has provided substandard care, which has resulted in harm, victims may have legal remedies to consider.
Surgical errors are a serious concern for victims
Greater than 4,000 surgical errors occur each year that could be prevented. The costs of the surgical errors is $1.3 billion in medical malpractice claims. The surgical errors are considered preventable because, according to researchers, they should never take place. They include mistakes such as performing the wrong procedures or leaving a sponge inside the patient's body after the surgery is completed.
California Supreme Court issues medical malpractice ruling
A recent California Supreme court ruling may have a significant impact on medical malpractice cases in the state. The ruling addresses the statute of limitation for medical negligence claims in the state. Statutes of limitation are important laws that require certain legal claims to be filed within a specific time period or be forever lost. It is always important to be familiar with these rules and the statue of limitations for a specific claim.
Important things to know about medical malpractice
The Journal of American Medicine reports that medical malpractice, or medical negligence, is the third leading cause of the death in the United States. Estimates place the number of patients killed in the U.S. each year as a result of medical errors at 200,000. During 2012, payouts for medical malpractice claims equaled 3 billion. Medical malpractice generally refers to the failure of a medical care professional to provide the recognized standard of care when treating a patient. The standard of care refers to what a reasonably prudent medical care provider would have done in similar circumstances.
