Physicians attend years of school and must pass complex state tests to practice medicine. They have an obligation to act in the best interests of their patients.
Medical malpractice occurs when a doctor engages in negligence or fails to meet the current best practices for their specific area of medicine. There are many different types of medical malpractice that can result in devastating consequences for the health and finances of patients, with the nine types of malpractice introduced below being among the most common.
1. Misdiagnosis
Misdiagnosis occurs when a doctor rushes through the diagnostic process without adequate information and arrives at the wrong diagnosis. Diagnosing a patient with a cold when they have pneumonia is an example of misdiagnosis, as testing could have validated the true cause of the patient’s symptoms.
2. Failure to diagnose
Without a diagnosis, a patient may not receive the care they require for their optimal recovery. Doctors who fail to order tests or who ignore self-reported symptoms from patients may fail to diagnose a patient when another competent professional could reach the correct diagnosis. If a doctor ignores symptoms, a patient’s cancer could worsen due to their failure to diagnose the condition.
3. Surgical errors
Surgical malpractice often involves never events that are fully preventable with proper care. Common surgical malpractice examples include leaving items behind in the patient, performing the wrong procedure or operating on the wrong body part, possibly caused by multiple back-to-back procedures.
4. Anesthesiology errors
The medication used to sedate patients during surgery is the most dangerous part of any operation. Anesthesia malpractice may involve failing to assess a patient’s history or family background. Anesthesiologists might provide the wrong dose or mix up drugs in a high-stress situation, especially if they are tired after multiple procedures.
5. Prescribing errors
Physicians prescribing medications should check for potential issues before choosing a treatment. A doctor who doesn’t check a patient’s current medications could prescribe a drug that dangerously interacts with another prescription they take, for example.
6. Birth injuries
In some cases, doctors don’t intervene promptly when something goes wrong during labor and delivery. Other times, they choose inappropriate interventions that put mother and child at risk. They can also make preventable mistakes while administering interventions. Ignoring fetal heart rate monitor readings could lead to a delay in interventions that produces preventable brain injuries.
7. Medication administration errors
Medical negligence cases involving prescribed medications can involve errors that occur during administration, rather than the prescribing process. Nurses inputting the wrong information into an IV machine or attaching the wrong bag of fluid can lead to a patient receiving the wrong drug or an excessive dose.
8. Failing to secure informed consent
Patients beginning medication regimens or preparing for surgery need accurate information about the risks involved and other treatment options available to them. The failure to secure truly informed consent by providing accurate in-depth information to patients is a common form of malpractice. Patients who don’t know their options might agree to unnecessarily dangerous treatment plans, such as experimental surgery instead of physical therapy.
9. Failure to address infections and sepsis
Medical providers should take careful steps to prevent patients from contracting infections. They also need to treat patients for early symptoms of infection and watch for signs that a condition has progressed into sepsis. Ignoring the early warning signs of sepsis can result in rapid medical decline for a patient, as sepsis can become life-threatening in a matter of hours.
Whether grieving family members want to pursue a misdiagnosis lawsuit or a patient wants to file a malpractice insurance claim due to experiencing common medical errors in Georgia, those affected by malpractice generally need help. They only have at most two years to file a medical malpractice lawsuit.
If another competent medical professional could have avoided the mistake at issue or prevented a poor outcome, the situation may constitute medical malpractice. Working with a skilled lawyer can help people to better ensure that they conform to state timelines and have the evidence necessary to hold medical professionals or their employers accountable for poor care.