Even with years of extensive schooling and training, medical professionals can still make mistakes. In most cases, these mistakes are caused by burnout, insufficient experience, or other forms of negligence.
Filing a medical malpractice claim is one way to ensure that doctors, hospitals, and other health care professionals are held liable for their negligent actions.
What are the most common types of medical malpractice?
If a patient is harmed due to negligence, the patient may have a legitimate claim for medical malpractice. Here are a few of the most common forms of medical malpractice:
- Delayed diagnosis: Physician fails to timely diagnose a patient’s condition, due to the physician’s negligence (e.g., failure to order proper tests).
- Misdiagnosis: Physician negligently diagnoses patient with the wrong condition.
- Surgical errors: Physician operates on the wrong part of the patient’s body, performs the wrong procedure, leaves a medical tool inside the patient’s body etc.
- Lack of informed consent: Physician fails to provide the patient with the information the patient needs to decide whether to have a procedure.
- Prescription errors: Physician prescribes incorrect dosage or incorrect type of medication or physician/other medical professional improperly administers medication.
- Failure to prescribe correct treatment: Physician does not prescribe proper treatment or physician/other medical professional fails to administer proper treatment.
Proving your claim for medical malpractice
The key to proving your medical malpractice claim in North Dakota is establishing that the parties you are filing your claim against provided care that was below the standard of care accepted in the medical field.
For example, you will need to prove that a reasonable, competent physician specializing in the same area of medicine would take a different course of action than your physician did, under the same circumstances.
You will also need to establish that the negligent actions of your doctor, nurse, or hospital caused you harm you would not have experienced if they had not violated the proper standard of care.