Examples of Medical Malpractice

Diagnostic errors are a common type of medical malpractice. These errors occur in three main ways.

In this case, the doctor fails to diagnose your medical condition even though they should be able to do it. For example, a negligent doctor might fail to diagnose you with a heart attack if your symptoms are relatively mild.

A delayed diagnosis occurs if the doctor takes too long to diagnose your medical condition. For example, a diagnosis that usually takes one consultation and a laboratory test might take multiple consultations and tests.

In this case, the doctor diagnoses your condition within a reasonable time, but they get the diagnosis wrong. An example is if your doctor diagnoses a malignant tumor as nonmalignant.

Medication errors come in various forms. Below are some examples:

• Wrong drug: A medical professional gives you the wrong drug for your condition.
• The wrong dosage: A medical professional gives you the right drug, but at a high or low dosage. 
• Improper combination: A medical professional gives you multiple drugs that interact negatively together.
• Mislabeling: A medical professional mislabels your drugs, so you don't take them correctly. 
• Failure to warn: A medical professional fails to warn you about dangerous side effects of your medication.

Note that medication errors can only rise to the level of medical malpractice if they cause significant injuries. For example, you don't have a medical malpractice case if you spot a mislabeled drug and have the mistake corrected in time.

Surgical errors are some of the most serious forms of medical malpractice. Here are a few examples of these errors:

This error occurs if the surgeon performs a surgery that you don't need. Maybe you don't need the surgery because it won't help you or because alternative treatments can work better than the surgery.

A negligent surgeon might damage tissue or an organ that wasn't the subject of the operation. An example is if the surgeon cuts your large intestine during an operation on your stomach.

The error might arise if a surgical team operates on the wrong part of the body or makes an incision on the wrong location. An example is if a surgeon operates on the left lung instead of the right lung.

This headline-grabbing error arises if a surgical team leaves an item in the body after the surgery is complete. An example is a needle or sponge left in the thoracic cavity after a chest operation.

Limited resources mean hospitals discharge patients before they completely recover. Follow-up care is necessary to help patients continue to recover at home. Without adequate follow-up care, a patient might even worsen in the days after discharge. In such a case, the party responsible for the follow-up failure might be guilty of medical malpractice.

Even though medical providers don't have to wait until you completely recover, they should only discharge you if you no longer need hospital services. For example, a hospital should not release a patient who requires major organ monitoring. Such premature discharge can worsen your medical condition, and the responsible hospital will be guilty of medical malpractice.

Medical malpractice is a complicated form of personal injury. Ideally, you need an experienced medical malpractice attorney to help you pursue such a claim. Fortunately, Wegner & Associates has over 40 years of experience with personal injury cases. Contact us today so that we can review your case and decide on how to proceed.