Medical Malpractice

What are some examples of medical malpractice?

Birth Injuries

Birth injuries may occur for a variety of reasons, but in instances in which they are caused due to medical negligence and careless mistakes made by your health care provider, you have the legal right to hold the responsible party accountable. Some birth injuries that may be caused by medical malpractice include: 

• Brachial plexus (also known as Erb’s palsy or shoulder dystocia)
• Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of the Newborn (PPHN)
• Anoxia
• Bone fractures
• Hypoxia
• Cephalohematoma
• Facial paralysis
• Spinal cord injuries
• Fetal lacerations
• Caput succedaneum
• Delayed recognition of fetal distress
• Failure to assess
• Improper use of forceps

Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral Palsy can be caused by a number of complications during labour, some of which may have been caused by the doctor or the attending nurses. Your cerebral palsy injury claim can be substantiated by any of the following negligent acts by a health care provider:

• Failure to recognize or treat seizures post-delivery
• Improper or excessive use of vacuum extraction
• Improper use of delivery forceps
• Failure to identify prolapsed umbilical cord which results in oxygen deprivation
• Failure to extract the child from the birth canal in a timely manner, resulting in oxygen deprivation
• Improper response to the mother’s elevated blood pressure or toxemia
• Improper diagnoses or treatment of jaundice or meningitis
• Failure to perform C-section in a timely matter despite large birth weight indicators
• Failure to respond adequately to fetal heart rate changes

Doctors’ Negligence

A doctor’s negligence can have grave consequences, potentially resulting in unnecessary injury and prolonged suffering. This can mean financial losses, emotional pain and suffering, and even death. Although every case is different, your medical malpractice lawyer will generally use the following framework for the basis of your doctor’s negligence claim:

• Establish criteria for a reasonable standard of care. Before we can determine whether your doctor’s actions failed to meet reasonable medical standards, we must first define these criteria. Your medical malpractice lawyer will retain specialists from the health care sector to identify reasonable standards of care, then ascertain whether these were met.
• Identify a breach of reasonable standards of care. Once we have established criteria for reasonable standards of medical care and competency, we must prove the doctor’s negligence.
• Establish causation for your personal injury. To win your medical malpractice case, you must link your injury to the doctor’s negligence. In some cases, a proven breach of reasonable standards of care may be unrelated to the injury. For example, failure to sterilize surgical tools is a clear breach of reasonable standards, but cannot be considered the cause for the wrong arm being operated on. On the other hand, the doctor’s negligence here could be linked to the development of a life-threatening infection during the patient’s recovery.
• Assess the damages of your medical malpractice injury. Once you have submitted evidence that establishes the doctor’s negligence caused your injury, you will need to assess its financial consequences. Accurate assessments depend on specialized knowledge obtained through collaboration between insurers, medical experts and members of your legal team.

Pharmacy Malpractice

Pharmacy malpractice or pharmacy negligence refers to the incorrect filling of a prescription and can also include: 

• Processing order liabilities
• Unauthorized prescription refills
• Improper labelling or instruction
• Wrong drug, dosage or potency
• Failure to warn patient of hazardous side effects, including addiction, consequences of excessive dosages and other risks that may arise from using the drug
• Failure to dispense necessary medication

Typically, the success of a pharmacy malpractice case will hinge on two factors:

1. The personal injury lawyer’s ability to establish the pharmacist’s duty of care to the persons receiving his or her prescription – this may require proof of vicarious liability
2. The personal injury lawyer’s ability to prove that pharmacy malpractice or pharmacy negligence has occurred – this will require documentary and oral evidence, as well as testimony from medical experts detailing the harm resulting from negligence

Once these criteria have been satisfied, liability will be imposed on the pharmacist, who will be required to compensate for pain and suffering, medical care, and other financial losses and expenses resulting from their negligence. Families who lose a loved one can also file a pharmacy malpractice against the pharmacist who breached their duty of care.

Surgical Malpractice

Surgical malpractice refers to any instance where physical, emotional or financial harm was inflicted as a direct result of a doctor’s negligence before, during or after an operation. Surgical injury and error varies widely in type and severity. For example, a doctor could fail to remove surgical materials during the operation, use improper surgical techniques, and as a result cause damage to nearby organs or membranes. In most cases, your claim will proceed under the theory of surgical negligence. Related issues include: negligent prescription of medications or medical devices and failure to obtain a patient’s “informed consent.”

Under the theory of negligence, the patient must prove:

• The surgeon’s duty of care to the patient, typically through illustration of the doctor/patient relationship
• The applicable standard of care, along with the health care professional’s deviation from this standard
• The extent of the patient’s injury, often through third-party assessments made by medical professionals
• The causal connection between the doctor’s deviation from the standard of care and the patient’s injury