Doctors and the other medical professionals maintain high standards of practice. However, in medical treatments, there are risks involved. As a result, mishaps may inevitably occur. Anytime your child or spouse is injured while receiving treatment; you are entitled to get an explanation on exactly what went wrong.
A similar entitlement applies to the dependents o
r children of a patient who passes away. The duty of care is the key to winning substantial compensation following shoddy treatment. But what is medical negligence? Medical negligence is a breach of the duty of care, which might have taken place at the time of injurious medical treatment. In the case of medical negligence, you can claim for compensation.
There are several types of medical treatments that medical negligence claims relate to. They include accident and emergency, general practice, cancer treatment, keyhole surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, mental health, plastic surgery, pediatrics, vascular surgery and radiography.
Duty of care: its constituents
There are many medical misdemeanors which are classified as a breach of the duty of care. They mostly apply to surgeons and doctors but are also applicable to some other professionals including midwives, psychiatrists, and dentists. The medical misdemeanors include:
- Any failure to give warnings on risks involved in the treatments administered.
- Failing to obtain consent to carry out an operation
- Taking inadequate care when performing a surgery
- Delayed referral to a specialist
- Delay or failure to diagnose a medical problem
- Incorrect medication prescription
Personal injury claims
Medical negligence claims are different from the personal injury counterparts. Instead of showing that there is a person to blame for having caused the injury, evidence of a specialist medical expert has to prove that serious errors during the treatment which a consenting doctor wouldn’t have made played a role in the injury being claimed.
If you totally believe that a doctor’s breach of the duty of care caused the suffering, you should seek a medical negligence solicitor’s advice. The quality of service provided by solicitors in the field widely varies. Therefore, you should find a solicitor that you can trust.
How common is medical negligence?
Medical negligence causes over 160,000 deaths annually in the United States. This makes it one of the most expensive and 
dangerous mistakes that the USA doctors make. Research by BMJ Quality and Safety that examined data from more than 350,000 malpractice claims in the United States for the last 25 years.
The research showed that most of the claims are related to diagnostic errors, and the errors caused severe patient harm and caused the biggest total payouts. Diagnostic related payments amounted to $38.8 billion between the year 1986 and 2010.
