Medical malpractice is a serious problem that leads to many injuries and deaths in Massachusetts. When a doctor or other health care professional makes an error in judgment or neglects to provide the appropriate treatment, a patient can be severely harmed by their actions.
What is considered medical malpractice?
Medical malpractice occurs when a health care provider commits an error or is negligent in some way that causes harm to a patient. The harm may be caused by:
• A misdiagnosis
• A delayed diagnosis
• The wrong medication
• A surgical mistake
There are an infinite number of ways that medical negligence can occur. In order to be considered medical malpractice in the legal sense, a doctor must have acted negligently and caused some type of measurable harm to a patient. The harm could be physical, emotional or financial, but it must be provable in court.
Standard of care
If your outcome after treatment was not positive, the doctor who treated you might be liable for medical malpractice if they failed to provide you with the requisite standard of care,, which is the level of care that another professional would have provided in similar circumstances.
When there was a clear medical mistake made, such as a medication dosage error, proving that a doctor did not provide the standard of care might be quite straightforward. In other cases, such as a delayed diagnosis, expert testimony may be required to establish that a doctor was negligent.
It’s hard to fight medical malpractice alone
While it may be clear from your point of view that medical malpractice occurred, a judge will want to see proof and hear testimony from people who work in the medical field. That’s why gathering a team that includes expert witnesses can be crucial for your claim.
