If a doctor makes a mistake, but the patient remains unharmed, then that same patient cannot pursue a medical malpractice lawsuit against the careless physician. A valid medical malpractice lawsuit must contain certain elements.
The role of the medical expert.
That expert needs to explain the nature of the level of care that was given to the suing patient.
Did that level of care fall below the accepted standard for other professionals I that same field?
Did that substandard care cause the affected patient to become injured in some way?
Applying the need for such elements to various examples of medical malpractice:
Examples in a hospital:
A nurse gives a patient the wrong medication. Care should be taken to read the labels, and to label items correctly.
Not all members of the staff get trained on how to lift patients. As a result, some patient gets injured, when an untrained member of the hospital’s staff has been asked to lift the same patient. The hospital does not furnish each visitor to an intensive care unit with a fresh gown. Instead visitors place their used gown on a rack, ready to be used by the next visitor. One of the patients in the intensive care unit develops an infection in a surgical scar.
Examples of poor performance by a professional:
Not monitoring the heartbeat of an unborn child during labor. That monitoring process serves to watch for the possible presence of a problem, one that must be corrected.
Not checking on the condition of a new mother, after she has undergone a Caesarean section. That same mother might have internal bleeding. Failure to check for that possibility could cause the same mother/patient to bleed to death.
Not monitoring the amount of anesthesia given to a surgical patient during an operation. Too much anesthesia could cause the patient to enter a comma. Too little could cause the patient to wake up during the procedure.
Not diagnosing the nature of a patient’s condition, following performance of what was supposed to be a thorough examination.
The possible weakness in a patient’s lawsuit:
It could be that advances in medical science had not advanced to the point where a patient’s slowly-emerging condition could be discovered with the available tools. That fact could be used as a defense, if a doctor had failed to make a diagnosis.
Some surgical patients develop an infection. The appearance or an infection in an intensive care unit might be attributable to some mistake made in the operating room. If the source could not be identified, no expert could say, whether or not some professional had performed at a substandard level. Hence, one element would be missing.
As per Personal Injury Lawyer in Moncton, all of these could constitute medical negligence.If you need more information about filing a claim, contact https://barapplawmaritimes.ca today and let us assist you.