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Doctors are held to a high standard of professional conduct. Doctors and other medical professionals who fail to provide adequate care can be help responsible for any harms that you experience, such as pain and suffering, additional surgeries or medical care, or the lost chance of recovering from your condition.
If you suffered poor medical care or lost a loved one to inadequate medical care in Texas, talk to the Arlington medical malpractice attorneys at The Queenan Law Firm, P.C., today. Our attorneys offer free consultations on new cases. Call (817) 476-1797 today to schedule your consultation and begin understanding your options.
Types of Medical Malpractice Lawsuits in Arlington, Texas
Most lay-people do not have the training or experience to understand their medical conditions, and we rely upon our doctors to take good care of us. If a doctor makes an error, it may take a long time to discover their error and understand the harm it caused you. The following are all examples to watch out for of ways you could be the victim of medical malpractice:
Surgical Errors
This may be the most obvious example of ways a doctor can fail to provide adequate care. While some surgical complications are expected – and within the limits of proper care – other errors are serious issues. If a doctor cuts too deep, nicks an artery or nerve, or otherwise causes more injury than necessary, they may have committed grave surgical errors. These can be compensated, especially if you needed more surgery to repair the error or the error caused serious health problems.
Failure to Diagnose and Delayed Diagnosis
When we experience symptoms close to a heart attack or have lingering conditions we can’t diagnose, we often worry it may be something serious. When your doctor fails to diagnose a serious condition, you may be lulled into a sense of security. It may take years of worsening conditions or a traumatic episode – like a heart attack or stroke – before you finally get the care you need. In some cases, this can lead to the patient’s death, or allow the condition to worsen beyond repair. Especially for lingering conditions like cancer, this can be a serious problem. Even if the doctor finally does come around and diagnose your condition, the delay may mean it is too late to fully recover.
Misdiagnosis
Along with the harms from a failure to diagnose or delay in diagnosis, a misdiagnosis can mean treatment for medical conditions you do not have. This may involve expensive medication, unnecessary surgical procedures, or even dangerous treatments. Especially with serious conditions like cancer, the treatment can often involve things like removing healthy organs and tissue alongside affected tissue, or using radiation and chemotherapy to eradicate cancer cells. If you do not have cancer, these treatments are extremely dangerous and cause serious harm.
Hospital Negligence
When you are in a hospital, much of the care you receive comes from people like the nursing staff. Whether your doctor is a hospital employee or private practitioner, the nurses, orderlies, and others you see at the hospital are usually hospital employees. This means that any harm they cause you may be compensated in a lawsuit against the hospital. The same is true for harm you suffer because their premises are unsafe, they mixed-up medicines, they failed to prevent bedsores, or they allowed you to slip in puddles or fall because of unsafe hand rails.
Filing a Medical Negligence Lawsuit in Arlington, TX
Many hospitals and doctors carry “medical malpractice insurance” or other liability insurance. This usually ensures that when you suffer serious harm because of a doctor’s poor treatment, there is some pool of money to fund your recovery. This means that taking the doctor or hospital to court may get you compensation you need to reimburse you for medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, the financial effects of losing a loved one, or the additional expenses associated with in-home medical care, transportation, and other results of the doctor’s errors.
In order to recover any compensation in the court of law, you must first show that the doctor was “negligent.” “Negligence,” as a legal term, means that you suffered harm because the actor’s care or skill fell below the reasonable, expected level. In medical malpractice cases, determining whether the doctor’s care fell below expected norms is usually the biggest part of the case.
Some procedures have inherent complications, and even the best doctors may have room for reasonable errors or misdiagnoses for difficult conditions. In court, each side usually presents medical experts to explain what the proper standard is, and whether the doctor’s care in this case was reasonable or not. If the jury decides the care was unreasonable, and you suffered harm because of that care, you may be able to recover substantial compensation for serious malpractice.
Contact Our Arlington, TX Medical Malpractice Lawyers for a Free Consultation
The medical malpractice attorneys at The Queenan Law Firm represent patients and their families in medical malpractice and medical negligence lawsuits throughout Arlington and the surrounding areas. If you or a loved one was the victim of medical malpractice, contact our Arlington, TX personal injury lawyers at our law offices today for a free consultation. Our number is (817) 476-1797.