SERIOUS INJURY

  • Surgery Cases
  • Broken Bones
  • Spinal Cord Injury
  • Disc Injury
  • Neck Injury
  • Head or Brain Injury
  • Torn Muscle / Ligament / Tendon
  • Fire / Scalding Burn Injury

MEDICAL-PHYSICIAN-HOSPITAL MALPRACTICE

  • Wrongful Death
  • Medical Malpractice
  • Surgical Errors
  • Heart Attack Misdiagnosis
  • Cancer Misdiagnosis
  • X-ray Misdiagnosis
  • Birth / Delivery Room Injury
  • Cerebral Palsy
  • Nursing Home Injury or Abuse
  • Bed Sores

MICHAEL DAOUDI WANTS YOU TO KNOW:
What Is “Medical Malpractice”?

Medical malpractice occurs when a healthcare provider – doctor, hospital, HMO, nurse, chiropractor, therapist or other individual or entity licensed to provide medical care or treatment – fails to do what a competent doctor would have done, resulting in injury, disability, physical impairment or death.  In general terms this may refer to any treatment, lack of treatment, or other departure from accepted standards of medical care, health care, or safety on the part of a health care provider that causes harm to a patient. A few examples of medical malpractice include misdiagnosis, improper treatment, failure to treat, delay in treatment, failure to perform appropriate follow-up, prescription errors, and the list goes on.

Healthcare providers should be held accountable for their negligent acts.  Even if a medical mistake is not fatal, it can cause severe, permanent damage, such as brain injury, paralysis, amputation, disability, or disfigurement. 

According to a recent report from the American Institute of Medicine, medical mistakes kill as many as 98,000 people every year and up to 7,000 patients die from errors in prescribing medicine.  This far exceeds the annual number of people killed as a result of traffic accidents (43,450), breast cancer (42,300), or AIDS (16,400). 

The CDC (Center for Disease Control) reports that 2 million hospital patients acquire infections each year that result in nearly 100,000 deaths. One CDC expert is even quoted as saying, “many hospital personnel fail to follow basic infection control, such as hand washing between patient contacts.”

Expanding these estimates to include general medicine practice outside of a hospital, the potential abuse by physicians is even greater: an in depth interview with 53 family physicians revealed that 47% of the doctors recalled a case where the patient died due to physician error. Only four of the total reported errors led to malpractice lawsuits, and none of the reported errors ever resulted in an action by a peer review organization.

According to a Harvard Medical Practice Study, only 1 in every 8 malpractice victims ever files a malpractice claim. Only 1 in 16 ever receives any compensation. Only 1 in 32 ever wins a jury verdict (23% of malpractice cases).

What This Means To You…

Inevitably, we all get sick, experience illness, accidents, and health problems in general as part of our human nature. Most of the time in which we seek medical attention, thankfully, everything goes well and our health is restored by the assistance of a competent, trustworthy, caring physician without incidence. Doctors cannot be expected to have the capability of an almighty power that can heal and perform miracles; sometimes, there is nothing that can be done to help someone overcome a health problem.  Nevertheless, all it takes is that one preventable mistake while entrusted in the hands of health care professionals that could disrupt or even destroy precious human life, forever.

In order for us to be protected from the possible dangers that do exist in the health care system, we need to be armed with knowledge of what medical malpractice is, information regarding some of our rights as health care consumers, and the initiative to ask questions, learn as much as we can, and be involved working together as a team player with health care professionals in managing one’s own health care.