When you hear the term medical malpractice, you may picture an extreme or shocking situation, such as a surgeon removing the wrong limb. But there are many forms of medical malpractice and all should be taken seriously.
Medical malpractice could be a major form such as the one described above or a more minor form such as a doctor failing to inform you of the risks of a procedure. Additionally, doctors are human beings and sometimes make mistakes that any human might make.
This can leave you wondering where the line is drawn between a mistake and medical malpractice. The question to ask is if the doctor was negligent.
Generally, if a doctor has followed all standard procedures and attempted in good faith to provide you with the best possible medical care and you still experienced a negative outcome, there is a chance this is simply a bad medical outcome and not negligence.
When is it negligence?
Doctors and healthcare professionals must adhere to a standard of care. When they fail to do so and this failure causes you harm, this could be negligence.
Proving negligence is challenging. You must establish that the doctor had a duty to treat you in a way that would be reasonable under similar circumstances. You must then prove that this duty was breached.
From there, you must show that the breach was the direct and proximate cause of your injury. Direct cause means showing a link between the breach of duty and your injury. Proximate cause means showing a substantial likelihood that the duty caused your injury or that your injury was a foreseeable result of the breach.
The final step of proving negligence is showing damages, which can be economic or non-economic. Medical bills, lost wages and other costs that are directly attributable to your injury fall under the category of economic damages. Non-economic damages include pain and suffering or mental distress.
The value of expert witnesses
Expert witnesses are often required in medical malpractice cases to prove your doctor’s actions were negligent and not an honest mistake. These experts are often other doctors who testify how they would have acted differently or how your doctor’s actions fell below the standard of care.