What You Should Know About Medical Malpractice from Family Doctor

The family doctor is usually the doctor you see most often for minor illnesses that are usually self-limited, for the ongoing management of chronic diseases like diabetes, cholesterol problems or thyroid disease and for issues related to pregnancy and infant care. The family doctor treats the young and the old—the entire family. They do not work entirely alone but have a series of consultants they can refer you to if you need to see a specialist for an uncommon disease, if the family medical practitioner needs you to have tests done that only a specialists can do or if they cannot identify what is wrong with you. 

Medical Malpractice Lawyer

General medical practitioners do not always get it right and sometimes make mistakes. If you are concerned about a clinical error that has caused injury or loss (including a fatality) you should speak to a medical malpractice lawyer as soon as possible. A medical negligence lawyer is usually a specialist who deals only with mistakes made by doctors or healthcare professionals including technicians. You will receive clear unequivocal advice according to medical malpractice Canada on both liability and the potential value of your medical malpractice claim enabling you to make a decision as to whether you should instruct the medical malpractice lawyer to take legal action in a court of law. Proving negligence is not an easy matter and the more information that is available the more likely a medical malpractice attorney will succeed.  

Specialists

It is the job of the family doctor or general medical practitioner to know the difference between what he or she can or cannot handle. The general medical practitioner should have a wealth of experience in the use of specialists to manage complicated cases so there should be no excuse for not referring on when a complex case comes their way.

General Practitioner Malpractice

What constitutes malpractice on the part of the general practitioner or family doctor? In order to determine whether there has been medical malpractice? It must be proved that there was a duty of care owed by the physician to the patient. It is also necessary to show that the doctor did not adhere to acceptable standards of medical care. The patient must have suffered from an injury for which they can be compensated, and the injury must have come directly from the physician’s actions. The patient’s lawyer carries the burden of proof on a balance of probabilities basis in these cases.

Duty of Care

Your family doctor assumes the duty of care as soon as they agree to see you or treat you or give you medical advice. They agree to treat you in the best possible way and to make no mistakes or deviation of medical standards. The injury man be physical or psychological however it is usually more difficult to prove emotional injury than it is to prove a physical injury.

Breach of the Duty of Care

Your doctor can be negligent by virtue of doing something that deviated from medical standards, such as doing unnecessary surgery. The doctor can also be negligent if he or she forgets or omits a necessary procedure that should have been done during the care of the patient. For example, if your doctor consistently fails to order tests to check for cancer, such as a mammogram or colonoscopy.

Compensation Calculation

Loss calculation by a medical malpractice lawyer is not as straightforward as it might first appear. Whilst most reasonably incurred losses and expenses can be claimed back there are some restrictions and some problems with calculating certain aspects of a claim. The first rule to consider is that the claim for a particular item must not be ‘remote’ which means that it must be a reasonably foreseeable loss thereby precluding obscure losses arising somewhere along a chain of events from the claimant. As an example, in a personal injury claim, it may be possible to claim a payout for injury arising in an accident on the way to a business meeting but it may not be possible to claim for subsequent losses caused by the missed business opportunity.

In a medical malpractice court case, losses that have been suffered by the injured party may include: –

Special Damages which includes loss of earnings, medical expenses and other losses that have been reasonably incurred

General Damages which includes pain and suffering and loss of the enjoyment of life.

Punitive Damages which are appropriate if the malpractice is the result of behavior that is reckless or where it is with conscious disregard to the results of the wrongful acts.

Time Limits

There are time limits for almost all applications to a court of law for actions claiming damages for personal injury. These time limits can vary dependent on location, the status of the proposed defendant and the type of claim. You should always contact a local medical malpractice lawyer as soon as you discover a potential problem with medical treatment. Delay may ensure the limitation period has expired and the opportunity to claim compensation may be lost forever.

All states in the USA have legislation known as a ‘statute of limitations’ which is a law referable to the time limits within which legal action must be pursued. Medical negligence information on limitation periods is essential as it can be crucial to the outcome of your claim. You should never rely on the written word which may be out of date. Advice should always be obtained as soon as possible from a local professionally qualified lawyer. The basic time limits vary considerably from state to state and there are often exceptions to the general rule.