Sometimes, no matter how experienced and qualified a health professional is, things can go wrong. There are various reasons why a single procedure or checkup could end badly for a patient, with the majority of causes being a form of medical malpractice.
Medical malpractice affects a vast majority of the global population and was the third leading cause of death in the United States of America in 2018 and has a huge presence in Asia as well. The effects of a botched procedure or a misdiagnosis can be life-altering, and in the worst case, can negatively affect an individual’s quality of life.
Lack of Informed Consent
Every single procedure, regardless of how major or minor it may be, comes with its own percentage of risk. Some side-effects are more probable than others, but it’s vital that a doctor explains all the potential repercussions an operation, or other forms of treatment, might have so that the patient can make an informed decision on what they want to have done to them.
If a doctor neglects to inform you of a side-effect, and you begin to show symptoms of this side effect, you have clear grounds for a medical malpractice case, as it can be argued that you’ve been misled without having all the information.
Another example of this type of malpractice is when a doctor does something to you that wasn’t priorly agreed upon, meaning that they acted without consent. This can range from a dentist pulling out an extra tooth, to a surgeon noticing a separate issue to the one they’re operating on and deciding to attempt to fix that while you’re under anaesthetic.
The main factor here though is that this unknown action needs to inflict actual harm or damage to your body for you to be able to make a claim.
Despite being hard to predict this sort of thing happening, there are ways to ensure that you’re prepared for medical malpractice and the consequences they bring, with the biggest aid being knowledge, by knowing the various different ways your consent could be breached, you can be more inquisitive, which helps these scenarios from occurring.
Failure to Diagnose an Issue
In some occasions, inaction is just as bad and even worse than the wrong action, and that’s certainly the case in terms of misdiagnoses. Believe it or not, even though the practitioner may not have inflicted any harm, doctors missing obvious illnesses or misinterpreting symptoms as another illness gives you ground to make a medical malpractice claim.
This is because not spotting a potentially dangerous illness and leaving that illness untreated gives it potential to grow into a bigger and harder to treat a health issue. As well as this, misdiagnosing an illness and thus providing irrelevant medication can cause patients experiencing inhibiting side-effects that they didn’t need to go through, meaning they suffered needlessly.
Some of the most common ailments that doctors fail to spot include some cancers, Lyme diseases and even depression.
Poor Aftercare
Even after a procedure is done and you’re discharged from the medical practice or hospital, the health care professionals still have a duty of care for you and still need to provide sufficient aftercare or follow up. It should be expected that doctors provide you with the medical supplies to aid in your healing processes, such as bandages or dressings or medication, and inform you on the measures and procedures you must take to help you heal correctly. There are also services that provide extremely personal and bespoke aftercare.
If there’s little to no communication on how to continue with your aftercare, leading you to mismanage this vital healing period, or if you aren’t given the sufficient equipment to conduct the required aftercare, then you have grounds to a claim and should get in touch with a medical malpractice solicitor who can build you a case to help you get the appropriate compensation.
