Medical Malpractice
Florida Medical Malpractice Attorney Assisting Injured Patients
Nobody visits a doctor’s office or schedules a routine surgery with the expectation of suffering a serious medical injury. However, as researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine emphasize, medical errors are the third leading cause of death among American adults. Most of these serious and fatal injuries could be prevented, but they can happen because a healthcare provider is careless or inexperienced.
If you or someone in your family suffered a serious harm because of medical malpractice, you may be able to seek compensation. An experienced medical malpractice lawyer can assist you with your claim.
What is a Medical Malpractice Claim
Medical malpractice is a specific area of personal injury law that allows an injured patient to seek compensation from a healthcare provider when that healthcare provider’s negligence causes her injury. Lawsuits that arise from a healthcare provider’s negligence can be known as medical malpractice or medical negligence claims.
In general, a plaintiff must be able to prove the following elements to succeed in a medical malpractice lawsuit:
- Duty: Healthcare provider owed the patient a duty of care;
- Breach of the duty of care: Healthcare provider breached the duty of care by failing to behave as another healthcare provider in the same field and in a similar geographic area would have behaved under similar circumstances;
- Causation: Healthcare provider’s breach of the duty of care caused the patient’s injury; and
- Damages: Patient suffered harm and actual damages as a result of the negligence
Liability in a Stuart Medical Malpractice
While many people think about medical malpractice lawsuits as a way of holding doctors accountable, many different parties can be liable in a medical malpractice claim in Stuart, including but not limited to:
- Physician;
- Surgeon;
- Nurse;
- Hospital or doctor’s office staff worker;
- Hospital itself;
- Medical records employee;
- Laboratory;
- Laboratory technician;
- Pharmacist; and/or
- Dentist.
Common Types of Medical Malpractice
There are many different types of medical errors that can lead to a successful medical malpractice claim, such as:
- Diagnostic error, including a misdiagnosis or a delayed diagnosis;
- Surgical error, such as leaving a foreign object inside a patient after surgery or performing wrong-site surgery;
- Anesthesia error, such as administering the incorrect amount of anesthesia; and
- Medication error, including prescribing the wrong medication, prescribing the wrong amount of medication, failing to check harmful interactions with the patient’s current medicines, or filling the wrong type or amount of medication.
Have You been Injured
in an accident?
Statute of Limitations for Your Medical Malpractice Lawsuit
Under Florida law (Fla. Stat. § 95.11), medical malpractice claims have a two-year statute of limitations. This means that a patient must file a claim within two years from the date of the injury, or within two years that the patient discovered (or reasonably should have discovered) the injury.
Contact a Medical Negligence Lawyer Today
Did you suffer a serious injury as a result of a healthcare provider’s negligence? If you or someone you love got hurt because your doctor made a mistake, you should learn more about filing a medical malpractice claim. An aggressive yet compassionate Stuart medical malpractice lawyer can get started on your case today. Contact Lesser, Lesser, Landy & Smith, PLLC for more information about medical negligence cases we handle for patients and their families in South Florida.
