Medical Malpractice Lawyer HoustonHouston Medical Malpractice Attorney
Medical malpractice is most commonly associated with some type of medical professional performing some medical act incorrectly or with negligence. However, medical malpractice can include a number of areas, such as failure to diagnose an illness or injury correctly, failure to treat an injury or infection correctly, mistakes made while prescribing or filling medical prescriptions, cerebral palsy due to a medical practitioner’s mistake, pulmonary embolism due to a medical personnel’s mistake, birth injuries that resulted from a doctor’s negligence or mistake, or errors that were caused by plastic surgery or dental mistakes. A qualified Houston medical malpractice lawyer can help you determine if your situation qualifies for compensation.

What Are the Most Common Medical Malpractice Cases?
Medical malpractice, or professional negligence that results in patient harm, occurs more often than most patients realize. For example, there were 6,720 medical malpractice payment reports in Texas in one year alone. Thousands of patients suffer at the hands of negligent, distracted, or incompetent physicians, surgeons, and other medical personnel. Learn the most common grounds for medical malpractice cases in the state.

Diagnosis Errors

It is a physician’s duty to diagnose patients to the best of the physician’s ability. While no doctor will get every diagnosis correct every time, every medical professional has a duty to strive to do so according to best practices and standards in the industry. Misdiagnoses, delayed diagnoses, and failures to diagnose can seriously injure or even kill patients.

If the disease is something that requires prompt treatment, such as a fast-moving cancer, diagnosis can mean the difference between life and death. If another “reasonable and prudent” doctor would have been able to diagnose the condition accurately in similar circumstances, the physician may be guilty of malpractice.

Medication Mistakes

Mixing up a patient’s medications can be fatal. Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. rely on prescription medications to ease symptoms and fight off illness. One “simple” mistake by the prescribing doctor, administering nurse, or pharmaceutical company can cause a health complication that severely damages the patient. Lack of patient education about a drug and its potential side effects is a main form of medication mistake. Prescription misinterpretation, improper dosages, and adverse drug reactions are also common.

Birth Injuries

At least six to eight of every 1,000 infants born in the U.S. suffer some kind of birth injury. Birth injuries can cause temporary harm to an infant, or remain with the individual for life. Common birth injuries include cerebral palsy, brachial plexus injury, spinal cord injuries, head and brain injuries, fractures, and lacerations. Medical negligence is often the source of preventable birth injuries to mother and child. Incompetent doctors, failure to monitor fetal vital signs, failure to diagnose maternal conditions, and improper techniques during difficult births can all cause birth injuries.

Surgical Errors

Operating rooms are environments where everything must go as planned for optimal patient outcomes. Even “routine” procedures like appendectomies can go wrong if the surgeon, anesthesiologist, support staff, or facility isn’t prepared to properly handle the operation. Surgical errors that can lead to medical malpractice claims are foreign objects left behind, anesthesia mistakes, surgical negligence (e.g., if the surgeon operates on the wrong body part), lack of communication, failure to warn of foreseeable risks, and negligent pre- or post-operative patient care.

Negligent Patient Care

An individual medical professional and/or the hospital may be liable for patient injuries if they arise due to negligence. For example, a patient may have grounds to file a claim if he or she gets an infection after surgery because of negligent post-operative care. If the physician responsible for the injury is an employee of the hospital, the patient could sue the hospital for vicarious liability. In other cases, the patient may only be able to sue the individual. This is typically the case if a doctor caused the harm, as most doctors are independent contractors. For more information about your medical malpractice claim in Texas, contact a lawyer.

How Do I Know If I Have a Medical Malpractice Case?

There are some basic requirements to meet if you want to pursue a medical malpractice claim. First, an official doctor-patient relationship must have existed between the plaintiff and the defendant at the time the incident in question occurred. A plaintiff cannot sue a medical professional for off-the-cuff remarks made outside of a medical setting, nor can a patient sue after failing to follow a doctor’s instructions for lifestyle changes or postoperative or post-procedural care. There are four basic elements for a case to qualify for a medical malpractice lawsuit:

  • An official doctor-patient relationship existed.
  • The defendant was negligent in some way. Typically, a plaintiff in a medical malpractice lawsuit will require testimony from an expert witness to verify the defendant’s actions ran contrary to what another similarly skilled, reasonable doctor would have done in the same situation.
  • The negligence caused injury to the patient. If a physician makes a mistake during a procedure and immediately corrects it with no adverse effects on the patient, this is not grounds for a medical malpractice claim. The plaintiff must be able to demonstrate actual harm, or some type of observable or measurable injury.
  • The injury caused specific damages. Damages in medical malpractice lawsuits typically include economic damages such as lost income and medical bills, and non-economic damages such as pain and suffering.

It’s also important for plaintiffs to remember that the statute of limitations for filing medical malpractice claims is generally much shorter than the statute of limitations for other types of personal injury lawsuits. In Texas, the statute of limitations for medical malpractice claims is two years from the date of the injury-causing incident, or two years from the date the plaintiff discovered his or her injury. Some injuries will not manifest noticeable symptoms for quite some time, so this statute of limitations is flexible for such cases.

Medical Malpractice Statistics in Texas and the U.S.

There is a long-standing debate concerning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and how the organization reports accidental deaths, most notably when it comes to medical injuries. According to a study conducted by Johns Hopkins University, medical errors should rank third among the leading causes of death in the United States. Roughly 250,000 Americans die every year from medical malpractice, and this staggering number includes deaths from misdiagnoses, dangerous drug prescriptions, drug interactions, surgical errors, failure to account for patient safety, and more.

The problem lies in the CDC’s decision to leave medical errors out of their list of leading causes of death in the United States. Cancer and heart disease are the top two leading causes, and therefore receive a great deal of attention and funding. If more people pay closer attention to the medical malpractice problem in the United States, the issue would likely receive more federal funding. Fortunately, Texas has witnessed a dramatic decrease in the number of medical malpractice claims filed over the last several years.

How Can a Medical Malpractice Attorney Help?

An attorney is an incredibly valuable asset in any type of legal matter, but this is especially true for medical malpractice claims. These cases are unlike other civil actions, and attempting to represent your own interests in a medical malpractice claim is a poor decision. While some people in rare instances have successfully acted as their own legal counsel in civil actions, medical malpractice claims are far more complex than typical personal injury claims. The average person does not possess legal training or the experience to know how to manage a case, and simple errors such as missing a filing deadline with the court can have a case thrown out before it can even reach trial.

An attorney will handle the legal issues pertaining to your medical malpractice case, but they can also support you in other ways, as well. The biggest perk to hiring a reliable medical malpractice attorney is peace of mind. You and your loved ones can focus on recovery while your attorney handles your legal concerns, fields communications with insurers, and helps connect you with public assistance programs and other support systems. This is a tremendous amount of peace of mind for such a complex and serious issue, so never underestimate the value of a reliable attorney in a medical malpractice case.

The most important job your attorney will have is proving the defendant in your medical malpractice case failed to uphold an acceptable standard of care during treatment. This is an extremely important concept for any medical malpractice case.

What is the Standard of Care?

“Standard of care” refers to the acceptable level of treatment a patient should receive based on his or her condition. The medical community generally reaches consensus regarding treatment methods and patient care, and medical professionals have an expectation to meet this standard in every patient interaction. Proving a defendant violated the standard of care for a given situation mirrors the process of proving negligence in a civil action, and requires four elements:

  • The defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff to provide an acceptable standard of care for the patient’s condition. Proving this element typically requires proving a doctor-patient relationship existed and the patient had a diagnosable condition for which there is an acceptable standard of care.
  • Next, the plaintiff must prove how the defendant failed to meet the acceptable standard of care in the given situation. This requires testimony from expert witnesses, or medical professionals who testify in medical malpractice cases to help the jury better understand medical terms and the patient’s experiences. An expert witness will testify as to whether a defendant met the standard of care for the incident in question.
  • Next, the plaintiff must prove that his or her injuries and damages resulted from the defendant’s failure to meet the standard of care for his or her condition. This can be the most difficult aspect to prove in these cases, because medicine is inherently uncertain. A patient may be unaware of a preexisting condition before a medical procedure, and the procedure may aggravate the condition and cause injury. The patient in this case will need to prove that his or her damages resulted from the defendant’s actions and not the preexisting condition.
  • The plaintiff must be able to prove that the defendant’s failure to meet an acceptable standard of care directly caused economic and/or non-economic damages.

Damages in Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Plaintiffs in medical malpractice lawsuits can secure several types of damages. Generally, a plaintiff can expect to receive compensation for any medical expenses resulting from the defendant’s negligence. This may include hospital bills as well as the cost of restorative procedures. Plaintiffs can also recover compensation for lost wages and the cost of living with a disability if the defendant’s actions caused irreparable damage.

Plaintiffs can also collect pain and suffering compensation, but Texas caps non-economic damages at $250,000. Texas will allow a plaintiff to receive $250,000 from a single defendant as well as $250,000 from the facility that employed the defendant, if applicable. In some cases, a jury may award punitive damages, as well, if a defendant’s behavior was grossly negligent, such as amputating the wrong limb after reading an x-ray backwards or performing surgery under the influence of alcohol.

Medical Malpractice Legal Advice | Ben Bronston & Associates

If you have been injured due to the negligence or error of a medical practitioner or health care provider, it is important to consult with an experienced Houston personal injury attorney at Ben Bronston & Associates immediately. Most medical malpractice cases in Texas have a statute of limitations (SOL) of two years from the date of injury. This means if you do not file a lawsuit for your injuries within this period, any lawsuit for damages may be barred under Texas law.