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Liability in West Palm Beach Medical Malpractice Cases

Liability in West Palm Beach Medical Malpractice Cases

When someone goes to a doctor, they expect that the doctor will treat their illness and injuries, in a professional manner. However, all it takes is one negligent doctor, to damage someone’s health. If you sustain an injury or fall ill due to the negligence of your doctor, you may have the basis for a medical malpractice case.

In medical malpractice cases, liability works by proving medical negligence. The doctor or healthcare provider failed to act as a reasonable health care provider should act when faced with the same type of facts. The attorney combines that with establishing that the failure to act reasonably led to or caused significant permanent harm to someone.

The biggest misconception about liability in West Palm Beach medical malpractice cases is that a person can sue any doctor for anything. These cases are difficult, expensive, and time-consuming. That is why you should hire an experienced medical malpractice attorney to represent you. A diligent lawyer will work hard to advocate for you.

When trying to disprove liability in West Palm Beach medical malpractice cases, one of the complaints is that the patient did not understand the potential risks of a particular surgery. A written consent form can set out exactly what the doctor told the patient about the risks of a particular surgery or procedure.

A consent form does not prevent a person from filing a meritorious lawsuit. A person can never consent to negligence. Anytime a health care professional or doctor violates the standard of care; they are negligent and can be held accountable.

Why Liability is Complicated

Most of the time when people go to doctors, they have an underlying medical condition that needs to be treated. That is why they go to a doctor. Often the defense is that what happened was an expected complication of a procedure that was necessary to save somebody’s life, but that does not change their liability in the West Palm Beach medical malpractice case.

However, whatever is listed on the consent form as a potential complication is not a defense if the doctor was negligent. As an example, if somebody can run through a red light and hit a pedestrian, they cannot use the defense that sometimes people run through red lights and hit someone.

A person does not consent to negligence the same way if the healthcare professional runs through a medical red light. A doctor can still be held accountable, no matter what the form said.

Proving Negligence

Negligence in West Palm Beach medical malpractice cases is proven through a couple of things. First, it is proven by the lawyer listening to the client and getting the client’s story because they were there and they lived through it. The lawyer reviews the medical records but medical records are often incomplete. They do not tell the whole story.

The lawyer puts the medical records together with what the client is saying and what other witnesses say. The lawyer compares the documentation and information to what the standard of care says ought to be done in those circumstances. The lawyer hires a professional medical doctor to review the documentation that comes to court and testifies that the doctor’s care fell below the standard of care and was negligent.

Patient negligence can be defended under claims that what happened is a complication that happened before even with everything done right. They can be defended by saying that the patient did something wrong that prevented them from having a good recovery.

Proving a Doctor is At Fault

When proving liability in West Palm Beach medical malpractice cases, doctors can be found at fault for not looking for the right thing because they are trained to go through a process called a differential diagnosis. They look at the signs and symptoms the patient has and then, based on appropriate medical training, identify different things that could be wrong. If they do not go through that list appropriately and rule out all the possible causes for what the patient is experiencing, they can be held accountable when the patient is hurt because the doctor did not look for the right thing on the list.

Value of an Attorney

A person comes to a doctor with a medical problem and is counting on the doctor to do something to address the medical problem. It is the responsibility the doctor is sworn to undertake; that is the Hippocratic Oath. For example, if a person comes to a doctor with signs and symptoms of an infection, the doctor should give the person an antibiotic. If they do not give the patient an antibiotic and the patient is harmed, the doctor needs to be held accountable for the harm they caused by failing to do the right thing. If you have sustained injuries or fallen ill due to the negligence of a doctor, get in touch with a lawyer who has experience proving liability in West Palm Beach medical malpractice cases. An experienced lawyer will be able to make sure that the responsible parties are held accountable.

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