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Most doctors don’t want you to know this, but medical mistakes are actually the third leading cause of death in the United States.
When we visit a doctor, we like to think of them as an experienced, highly-trained professional who can be trusted to perform a highly-skilled job that we cannot perform ourselves.
And most of the time, medical professionals are highly competent at their jobs.
But sometimes, doctors make mistakes, and those mistakes have lasting consequences on their patients’ health and wellbeing.
However, before you visit an attorney, it’s important to understand whether you’re dealing with medical malpractice or medical negligence.
The terms are often used synonymously, but the difference between malpractice vs negligence can drastically change the nature of your case.
Here’s what you need to know about the difference, and what it means for your lawsuit options.
What Is Medical Malpractice?
Medical malpractice occurs when a patient is harmed by a medical professional who fails to competently perform their medical duties, typically through a negligent act or omissi
In legal terms, the medical professional deviates from the recognized standard of care in treating a patient.
Standard of care is what a reasonably prudent medical professional would or would not have done under the same circumstances with the same available information.
This is used as a benchmark against the doctor’s work.
The doctor’s defense would have to prove that another doctor would have made the same decisions under the same circumstances, and thus the doctor’s actions align with standard of care.
What You Need for a Claim
In order to prove a medical malpractice claim, you need to prove a few basic facts.
First, you have to show that there was a doctor-patient relationship (that is, you hired the doctor and the doctor agreed to be hired).
This is the easiest way to prove that the doctor owed you a duty of care.
Second, you need to prove that the doctor was negligent.
Note that this is not the same thing as providing medical care you were unhappy with.
You have to show that the doctor caused harm to you in a way that a competent doctor would not have under the same circumstances.
The doctor’s care does not need to be the best possible, but it does need to be reasonably skillful and careful.
Third, you have to prove that the doctor’s negligence directly resulted in your injury.
This is the tricky part of the lawsuit, as malpractice cases typically involve patients who were already sick or injured.
There is a question as to whether the doctor did cause harm, even if they were negligent.
For example, if a patient dies after treatment for late-stage lung cancer and the doctor did do something negligent, it can be difficult to prove that the doctor’s negligence is responsible for their death rather than lung cancer.
As such, the patient must show that the doctor’s negligence was more likely than not responsible for their injury.
Finally, the patient must prove that the injury led to specific legal damages, such as mental anguish, physical pain, or lost work an earning capacity.
Common Types of Medical Malpractice
The cases that can lead to a medical malpractice lawsuit are many and varied, as there are a huge variety of ways for a doctor to be negligent.
Some of the most common medical malpractice lawsuits are:
Failure to diagnose
Improper treatment
Failure to warn patients of risks
For example, if a doctor failed to inform a patient of the risks of a certain surgical procedure, they failed their duty of informed consent.
In other words, if a patient would have elected not to go through with a procedure once informed of the risks, the doctor may be liable if the patient is injured during that procedure.
What Is Medical Negligence?
Medical negligence is often used synonymously with medical malpractice, but they are slightly different concepts with different legal consequences. Before we delve into how and why they’re different, let’s talk about what negligence is and is not.
Medical negligence refers to a failure to exercise care that a reasonably prudent medical professional would have exercised under the same circumstances.
They treat their patients in a way that deviates from the legal and medically-accepted standard of care.
What You Need for a Claim
Because medical negligence, like malpractice, is a subset of tort law, many of the basic requirements for establishing a claim remain the same.
For those who are rusty on their legal terminology, tort law is a type of civil law intended to redress wrongs done to a person and provide relief from the harmful acts of others.
You still need to prove that a doctor-patient relationship existed to establish a duty of care.