Are you or someone you love a victim of Ann Arbor medical malpractice? Medical errors account for more than 251,000 deaths per year in the United States, as well as many different types of injuries that can turn lives upside down. If you’ve been a victim of medical malpractice, it’s essential that you turn to experienced patient rights lawyers for help getting compensation for your losses.
At Giroux Pappas Trial Attorneys, we offer the guidance you need to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. Learn more about what these lawsuits entail and why you need to turn to a lawyer.
Ann Arbor Medical Malpractice: Most Common Types of Medical Errors
Any medical professional can commit medical malpractice, which is when physicians and other practitioners in the medical field provide substandard care. Some common medical errors can lead to serious consequences.
Misdiagnosing Conditions
Misdiagnoses are the most frequent types of medical malpractice. When you turn to a physician, you expect to get an accurate diagnosis so that you can begin getting appropriate treatment. If that doesn’t occur, your condition can worsen. You may also receive care you don’t need, which could cause injuries.
Keep in mind that not every misdiagnosis is medical malpractice. It’s only considered such if the doctor failed to provide the care that a reasonably competent physician would have offered under the same treatment conditions.
If you’re not sure whether what you’ve experienced qualifies, turn to a medical malpractice attorney in Ann Arbor, MI.
Delayed Diagnoses
A physician has to offer prompt and accurate diagnoses so that patients can receive the treatments they need in a timely manner. If a doctor fails to diagnose you accurately or if they don’t think you have a condition that requires treatment, you can suffer a worsening of the illness because of the delay.
Examples of delayed diagnosis medical malpractice are if your doctor fails to order a crucial diagnostic test or if they don’t interpret the results correctly, leading to the wrong diagnosis. A malpractice law firm in Ann Arbor can help.
Inappropriate Treatment
Even if you receive an accurate diagnosis, you may not get appropriate treatment. Physicians may discharge patients too early or could prioritize profit over the best care. In situations in which you’re given inappropriate treatment for a condition and it results in further illness or injuries, you can file a claim.
Surgical Errors
Surgeries are complex procedures, and mistakes can happen. If the errors are the result of negligence, however, you have the right to file a medical malpractice claim. Some common surgical errors that can apply include:
- Leaving objects inside the patient
- Wrong-site surgery
- Performing the wrong surgical procedure
- Wrong-patient surgery
- Damaging nerves, organs, or other tissues during surgery
- Failing to provide appropriate follow-up care
- Anesthesia errors
- Using instruments that aren’t sterile
These kinds of errors can significantly impact a patient’s quality of life and could even lead to fatalities. A medical error attorney can help you prove that the mistake was the result of negligence.
Birth Injuries
Birth injuries occur in about 10 babies per 1,000 live births in the United States. Some of these injuries are unavoidable, but others are the direct result of negligence from the medical staff. If the physician doesn’t offer appropriate prenatal care or fails to diagnose conditions, it could result in injuries.
Birth injuries can also result from:
- Inappropriate use of assistive devices
- Failing to perform a C-section
- Prolonged labor
- Failing to monitor fetal vital signs
Many types of birth injuries can occur, with one of the most severe being cerebral palsy. This is a group of conditions that can lead to lifelong disabilities.
Why You Need a Michigan Medical Malpractice Lawyer
Filing a medical malpractice claim is never a simple process. Often, there are a number of parties involved besides the medical professional. These parties include hospitals and clinics, and crucially, the plaintiff is the one who has to prove that malpractice took place.
To do that, you must show that you had a patient-medical provider relationship with the defendant and that they owed you a duty of care. You then have to demonstrate that their negligent actions caused the injuries you sustained and that you can be compensated for those injuries.
None of this is easy to do, especially while dealing with potentially debilitating injuries. By turning to a healthcare negligence lawyer, you can focus on getting the care you need while they file the claim for you, gather the necessary evidence to prove it, and negotiate with the other parties.
Negotiating with the barrage of lawyers medical professionals can bring to the table requires experience, and that is what a lawyer provides. You’re more likely to get fair compensation when you have an attorney.
If the negotiations don’t go the way that you want them to, your lawyer can also file a lawsuit and take the case to court. If you attempt to do this without legal assistance, you could end up losing the compensation you deserve.
Available Medical Malpractice Compensation
With the help of a medical negligence attorney in Michigan, you can receive economic and non-economic damages.
Economic Damages
Economic damages cover the tangible losses you sustained. Your malpractice injuries may require treatment, and that’s not something you should have to pay out of your own pocket.
By claiming medical expenses, you can get coverage for hospital bills, rehabilitation therapy, and much more. If the injuries leave lasting damage that requires continuous medical care, you can also claim future medical expenses.
Sustaining injuries usually requires you to take time off from work to heal and get treatment. That means you lose income you’d otherwise have made. By claiming lost wages, you can get coverage for your salary, commissions, bonuses, and anything else you would have received if you had not suffered an injury.
Lost earning potential is another type of damage you can claim if you won’t be able to return to your regular job or work at all because of the injuries you sustained. This is important for people who have suffered disabling injuries.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages deal with losses that are less simple to quantify because they’re subjective. They include pain and suffering damages, which seek to compensate you for the emotional and physical distress you’ve experienced because of the injuries. The severity of the losses plays a role in deciding how much compensation you receive.
If the injuries don’t allow you to live your life as you did before the injury, you can also claim loss of enjoyment of life, and if you lost a loved one as a result of medical malpractice, you can claim loss of consortium. This tries to compensate you for the loss of love and support you’ve suffered.
Turn to a Personal Injury Lawyer in Ann Arbor
When you turn to medical professionals for help, you trust that they’re competent and ready to help you address your health issues. That trust sometimes isn’t warranted.
If you’ve suffered injuries because of medical malpractice, you need a medical negligence lawyer in Ann Arbor. At Giroux Pappas Trial Attorneys, we offer the assistance you need throughout the complex process of filing a claim.
We have years of experience helping the people of Ann Arbor, MI, and we can help you, too. Contact us today.