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 A Medical Negligence Attorney Can Help You Pick Up The Pieces The American Association for Justice, a group representing medical negligence attorneys, has created a website, www.98000reasons.org, and accompanying web videos to spread the message that medical negligence is a real concern to ordinary citizens. Further, the group asserts, health care reform should not deny the right of those who suffer injury as a result of it the opportunity to seek redress from negligent health care providers.
The name of the website, 98,000 Reasons, refers to the number of patients who die because of medical negligence annually in the United States. That, according to the group, is the equivalent to two 737 airliners crashing every day. Given the large number of victims, it would be unfair to limit the right to bring medical malpractice cases as a part of health care reform.
The group further illustrates their point by presenting a number of case histories of those who have been injured by physician malpractice. One such case, for example, was that of Leslie Ray of New Milford, Connecticut, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in August of 2006. While receiving radiation treatment, she complained of a tingling sensation in her right arm. The radiation caused permanent nerve damage in her right arm and she has lost all use of it. Debilitating injuries such as this, the group claims, must remain subject to redress via the court system.
While undergoing radiation treatment, she noticed tingling in her right arm. Leslie’s doctor ignored her repeated protests. By the end of all her treatments, Leslie suffered permanent injuries to her brachial plexus nerve. Leslie lost all use of her right arm, and now must train herself to be left-handed.
The Sun Times Media of Chicago reports a jury has awarded $22.3 million to the parents of a boy who allegedly lost his left leg and suffered cognitive deficiencies and developmental delays due to medical negligence on the part of Advocate Christ Medical Center/Hope Children’s Hospital, in the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn.
According to medical negligence attorneys Antonio M. Romanucci and Stephan D. Blandin who represented the parents, the boy was born Advocate Christ with a congenital heart defect which required a shunt procedure. Two weeks after being sent home, his parents took him to the emergency room at the hospital.
While there, the jury concluded, the hospital and staff made several negligent errors including the failure to make a timely diagnosis of the shunt problem, subjecting the boy to an unnecessary cardiac catheterization, improperly applying a pressure dressing to the boy’s leg, failing to monitor his pulse, and improperly destroying an echocardiogram.
Jake Tinman was born on May 15, 1999 at Advocate Christ with a congenital heart defect which required a shunt procedure. He was then sent home with his parents, Pamela and Michael Tinman, of Bolingbrook. Two weeks later, Jake’s parents took him to the emergency room at the hospital where a series of delays and overall negligent care led to his injuries. His left leg, which was alleged to have been improperly dressed in the operating room, ultimately had to be amputated. Delayed treatment and cardiac catheterization led to his cognitive deficiencies and developmental delays.
Medical negligence claims are simply about who should bear the financial burden of a health care provider’s mistake — you or the medical malpractice insurance company. All too often victims of debilitating medical mistakes feel pressured to forgive and forget because no one likes the idea of contacting an “ambulance chaser” or being “sue crazy”. This is unfortunate, because the pain and frustration these folks are suffering isn’t their fault. They need professional legal help from a medical negligence attorney to start putting their lives back together.
If you or a loved one have suffered harm because of a medical mistake, you are probably wondering whether you have any medical negligence claims. Here is a brief overview of medical negligence (also known as medical malpractice) to help you as you consider contacting an attorney.
Medical negligence claims arise when a health care provider makes a mistake related to the medical care of you or a loved one and that mistake results in some kind of harm.
Let us look at each aspect of the definition a bit more closely:
1. The situation involves a health care provider. Physicians come to mind first, but there are other types of health care providers that can (and do) occasionally make mistakes that qualify as medical malpractice. Nurses, chiropractors, dentists, podiatrists, even hospitals or physicians groups as legal entities all count.
If you are talking about your hair stylist or the counter clerk at the herbal store, however, it is more difficult to show medical negligence unless there is some type of special training or licensing requirement that permits them to provide the kind of health care that went wrong. A good example of this is massage therapy. In many states, there is a strict schooling and licensing regimen that may involve, say, the massage therapist’s ability to spot worrisome moles on their clients’ backs and suggest follow up with physician. The failure to do this would in some states be medical negligence.
2. The health care provider makes a mistake. This is the “negligence” part. That is, the health care provider fails to do something that he or she has a duty to do as your health care provider. The scope of the duty to perform your health services properly is called the “standard of care”. To determine the standard of care, a court asks “what do competent health care providers typically do in cases such as yours?” If for example, a competent health care provider would have found a particular cancer by a certain stage, and yours does not, it is negligence.
3. The mistake is harmful. That is, the mistake causes “damages,” or harm capable of being assigned a monetary value. Often the harm caused by the mistake is obvious. A surgeon, say, amputates the wrong limb, or a physician fails to find a cancer at a stage prior to it spreading. Sometimes, though, the mistake may not be harmful, such as when an illness is misdiagnosed but quickly clears up on its own.
There are countless variations of these elements. Your medical negligence attorney will conduct a thorough interview with you at the outset to determine how you should proceed.
If you are reading this, it’s likely that you or a loved one has suffered a medical and financial setback due to a health care provider’s mistake. Perhaps also you have decided to hire a medical negligence attorney to help you get the money you will need to get your life back on track. If so, you have taken an important first step. Here are some good tips at the beginning of your journey to avoid costly mistakes:
Don’t do nothing. Every state has a “statute of limitations” which is a law designed to prevent people from waiting too long before bringing a suit against someone. Once the time limit for bringing a suit expires, the matter is usually over, and you can no longer bring suit based on what happened.
Also, health care providers typically alert insurance defense attorneys immediately when a mistake occurs. Sometimes they find out about a mistake before you do! Their only job is to protect insurance company money. Don’t let them have too much of a head start in preparing their case against you. Get legal help right away.
Don’t allow guilt to prevent you from taking action. Often a person develops a strong relationship to his or her health care provider. This is a good thing. It means the health care provider cares. But this relationship can cloud one’s ability to make good decisions about who should bear the burden of a medical mistake. The fact is, all health care providers carry medical malpractice insurance. So the issue is whether you will bear the financial burden of the medical mistake or will it be the insurance company who, after all, is paid to bear the burden of medical mistakes.
Don’t speak with the health care provider or opposing counsel about the case. Once you have hired your medical negligence attorney and are moving forward with the case, let him or her do the talking. At this point, you and your former health care provider are not on the same team, despite any relationship you may have. And it is unethical for opposing counsel to attempt to speak with you without your lawyer present. Remember, comments you make to the person you are seeking recovery from may be used against you later.
Do follow your attorney’s advice. Your attorney has taken an oath to represent you zealously. Comply with all of his or her requests for documents, statements, etc.
Seek reasonable contingency fees. Typically a medical negligence attorney works for a “contingency fee”, which is a percentage of whatever money you get from the case. States vary, but the state bar association usually have guidelines for attorneys setting the upper limit for how big a cut from your winnings an attorney may take. Contact your state bar association for details. Also, it is worth it to make ask that the contingency fee be less if the case settles quickly rather than goes to trial.
Don’t provide a hidden camera moment. This sinks a lot of cases. Insurance defense attorneys can and do hire private investigators to check out claims of injury. If the injuries you sustained because of the medical negligence disable you somehow and you are claiming that disability as part of your damages, do not do something like play flag football in the park on a day in which you feel temporarily better. Even if you were only doing this because you get an occasional reprieve from your pain, the hidden video of your fun will sink you even if it does not accurately reflect what you are going through.
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