Do I Have a Medical Malpractice Case?

See below for questions to answer relating to whether or not you may have a medical malpractice case:

• Did you have a doctor-patient relationship? A doctor patient relationship is fairly easy to establish in most cases. When you have an appointment at a doctor’s office to discuss or receive medical care, your relationship has been established. Casually conversing with a medical professional outside of his or her employment will generally not create a doctor patient relationship. For example, if you are having tea with your neighbor who happens to be a doctor and you mention your headache to which she offers you a pain reliever, a doctor patient relationship has likely not been established.
• Did the medical professional breach the standard of care owed to you? If yes, the medical professional was negligent. Standard of care can generally be described as the care, skill, and competence that would be exercised by medical professional peers. Was the practice acceptable based on the practices of other doctors with similar training in a similar practice?
• Did you suffer injuries or some type of harm as a direct result of the negligence? The injury element of medical malpractice is two-fold in that you must be able to establish that you were injured and then you must be able to prove that the injury was caused by the medical professional’s negligence.
• Do you have damages? In medical malpractice cases, you may be awarded economic and noneconomic damages. Economic damages may include medical care, lost wages, and loss of earning capacity. Noneconomic damages may include pain and suffering, emotional distress, and loss of consortium. In order to have a medical malpractice case, you must have quantifiable damages.

Typical medical malpractice cases include surgical errors, misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose, improper prescription, performing unnecessary surgery, failing to review or inquire about a patient’s medical history, and failure to recognize symptoms.