Any health care provider can make a mistake that leaves a patient must be worse off than when he or she sought treatment. The simple mantra that guides all medical practice—“Right intervention, right patient”—leaves almost infinite room for error. This is because “intervention” means telling the patient what the problem is, performing surgery, giving drugs, or even doing nothing when taking more drastic action appear contraindicated.

Sadly, when a doctor, nurse, dentist, pharmacist, or technician fails to follow the correct procedures or exercise the appropriate amount of attention to detail, individuals who were already suffering experience even worse outcomes. An incomplete list of types of medical malpractice includes:

 

  • Misdiagnosis/Failure to diagnosis, meaning the appropriate treatment can be administered
  • Wrong site surgery such as operating on the left leg when the right leg is the injure one
  • Surgical errors such as improperly amputating a body part, injuring internal organs, and even setting patients on fire when gases such as oxygen encounter too much static electricity
  • Wrong patient surgery, with a shocking example of this being giving a man breast implants when he had actually requested pectoral muscle reconstruction
  • Wrong drug delivery, including prescribing and dispensing a medication different from the one indicated or one that would clearly cause serious interaction with other drugs the patients is receiving
  • Wrong dose, which is a particular problem with anesthesia drugs and prescription painkillers
  • Incorrect drug administration
  • Birth injuries
  • Nursing home abuse and neglect

 

When any of these happen to you or a loved one, you must speak with a medical malpractice lawyer in Cleveland, Ohio. Succeeding in receiving compensation for a personal injury or wrongful death caused by medical malpractice requires showing that the error resulted from negligence or recklessness. Only an experienced Cleveland medical malpractice attorney will have the knowledge and resources necessary to find and present such evidence.

 

A quick look at a hypothetical birth injury case illustrates this. Many problems can occur during a pregnancy and delivery, and dozens of health professionals from OB/GYNs to midwives and pharmacists may be involved in caring for the mother and baby. Miscommunications, duplicative treatments, and harmful errors could occur at any time. If the child is born suffering from cerebral palsy or another unexpected disability, reconstructing the medical history is essential. It will also be necessary to have independent experts review all the medications prescribed and administered, to analyze the actions of all the members of the team who conducted the delivery, and to check into the histories of those medical practitioners for patterns of poor patient outcomes.

 

Then, if medical errors are discovered, judgments must be made as to whether human fallibility is to blame or if an erring medical professional ignored or flouted best practices and failed to deliver care that met minimum standards. Related to this, it must be determined whether the hospital where the delivery was performed had adequate rules and safeguards in place to protect patients from poorly trained and insufficiently equipped practitioners.

 

The mother in this case could not be expected to do all of this. No patient or family struggling to deal with the consequences of suspected medical malpractice could. Many Cleveland-based medical malpractice attorneys with Agee Clymer Mitchell and Portman do nothing but investigate poor-performing health care providers with the intention of making sure the patients they harmed receive compensation. So if you think a negligent or reckless health care provider has committed malpractice against you or a family member, call us at (800) 678-3318 or reach out on online to let us know how we may be able to help. The consultation will cost you nothing.