Medical Malpractice

Medical Malpractice cases are difficult to win and you must hire an attorney that knows the law and the burden of proof in a medical negligence case. Most medical malpractice cases are not settled out of court but go to a jury verdict. The burden in a medical malpractice case is to show that the medical provider “deviated from the standard of care” of what a reasonably careful provider would do under similar circumstances. Often times it is not enough to show that the medical provider made a bad judgement call in an emergency situation.

Almost every medical malpractice case requires medical expert testimony. Medical malpractice cases are very costly ranging often times from at least one hundred thousand dollars in costs because numerous doctors are called to give expert opinions as to what the standard of care is and why or why not that medical provider deviated from the standard of care that was required of him or her.

In order to file a lawsuit for medical malpractice a comma is needed after Complaint at Law, an affidavit of a medical provider be attached with an Affidavit that states that in his or her opinion, the Doctor, medical providers or Medical Facility that is the subject of the lawsuit deviated from the standard of acceptable medical care.

In medical malpractice cases the medical records must be examined with intense scrutiny and often times the records will also be reviewed by non lawyers in the medical field. It is important to know that you have every single medical record notation including nurses notes, scans, history form, diagrams, etc so you have a clear understanding and are able to put the pieces together of this puzzle to determine how the medical mistake occurred and who was responsible for making that medical mistake.

Most recently, I handled a medical malpractice case where the mammogram film was misread. When taking the film to a radiologist to review the mammogram, he held the film up on his “black box” and showed the area where the obvious calcifications were and stated a follow up ultrasound should have been immediately ordered. The client, an attorney, was diagnosed with breast cancer six months later. After a mastectomy, she was lucky to have a good result. After taking, the treating tele radiologist deposition and producing our expert radiologist and oncologist for deposition, the case was settled for $650,000.00.

Medical negligence cases are very complicated and require a trial lawyer with experience to pursue these costly cases. Therefore, when deciding on a lawyer to handle a medical malpractice case make sure they have handled many of these cases because EXPERIENCE MATTERS!