You and your loved ones rely on doctors to provide important medical care. If you are seriously ill or injured, you rely on these professionals to give advice, provide care, and offer support. Most physicians perform their jobs with precision and provide exceptional care, but when they fail to do so, it places their patients at risk. This negligence may result in medical malpractice, doctor negligence, or other malicious behavior that causes a patient significant harm. This outcome is unacceptable for a profession intended to heal the sick and injured.
If you or a loved one has suffered due to medical malpractice, you may want to fight back against this injustice, but it is hard to know where to start. The medical profession is filled with bureaucracy and red tape that makes it difficult to voice your concerns. The Champaign medical malpractice attorneys at Spiros Law, P.C. understand this struggle, and we will help protect your rights as a patient.
Medical Malpractice Cases
Medical malpractice can come in a variety of different forms because any medical professionals may commit malpractice. The title of medical professional may extend from doctors and nurses to technicians, hospital staff, and pharmacists. The large number of different medical professionals you may visit when suffering from an illness or injury creates greater opportunity for malpractice to occur. Some of the most common areas of malpractice include:
- Wrongful Diagnosis/Failure to Diagnose a Condition
- Improper Treatment
- Surgical Errors
- Emergency Room Errors
- Birth Injuries
- Wrongful Death
- Delay in Treatment
- Hospital Negligence
Any one of these forms of medical malpractice may have devastating results for the patient and their loved ones. Damages caused by malpractice may include injury, increased hospitalization time, financial burden, temporary or permanent disability, and in the worst cases, death.
How to Prove Medical Malpractice
Although medical malpractice is common across the United States, with nearly 640,000 cases reported in the last 10 years, it is still difficult to file a claim. There is important information you must prove and necessary steps you must take in order to make a valid claim. Some of these elements include:
- Proof of a doctor-patient relationship: This demonstrates that you hired the medical professional involved and received their advice and services in a medical setting.
- Proof that the doctor was negligent: This involves information of some kind that demonstrates your doctor caused harm in a way a competent doctor would not. The heart of most malpractice claims involves determining if the doctor was “reasonably skillful and careful.”
- Proof that the doctor’s negligence caused the injury: You must be able to show that your injury or illness was the result of doctor negligence rather than circumstantial.
- Proof that the injury led to specific damages: While these damages are often physical, they may also relate to mental anguish, financial burden, and loss of working and earning capacity.
In order to gather this information, it is essential that you receive a medical assessment to confirm your condition. This physician may issue you a “certificate of merit,” which indicates that you have a valid injury that resulted from negligence. Additionally, it is important to contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney to help you use this information to build a case against the doctor at fault.
Contact a Champaign Medical Malpractice Attorney
Medical malpractice can have destructive and distressing effects on you and your loved ones. Those responsible for the damages caused must be held accountable for their actions. The Champaign medical malpractice attorneys at Spiros Law, P.C. have experience in malpractice law and are prepared to fight with you to bring justice. Medical malpractice is a serious problem, but you do not have to face it alone. To learn more about medical malpractice or to discuss your case, contact us at (217) 328-2828 today.
