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What Is the “Medical Standard of Care” in a Malpractice Case?

Published on Aug 14, 2018 at 1:33 pm in Medical Malpractice.

People usually trust healthcare providers like doctors, nurses, and pharmacists to provide excellent care and help them feel better. It’s not common for people to think those individuals will make a mistake that hurts them. But medical malpractice cases do occur. Something like a missed detail on a patient’s record could mean a healthcare provider doesn’t have all the information about how to treat their patient.

Medical malpractice cases need an expert and skilled attorney to get a favorable outcome. A Louisville medical malpractice lawyer from Thomas Law Offices will fight for your rights and help you get compensation for your injuries.

Medical Malpractice Cases

In a medical malpractice case, you need to prove a few points for your claim to be valid. Your medical malpractice lawyer knows what evidence you need to have for your claim.

  • Doctor-Patient Relationship. This means that you went to this healthcare provider and they agreed to treat you.
  • The person providing your care acted negligently.
  • Connect the Negligence to Your Injury. Their negligence is what caused your injury.
  • How Your Injury Affected You. Then you show how your injury has caused pain and suffering or what it’s preventing you from doing because you have to recover. Your injury also could have required a lot of medical care and you will soon have to pay back your expenses.

Your lawyer will fight to get you financial compensation to help cover the costs of your injury. This could also cover lost wages from missing work in the past or loss of earning for work you’ll miss in the future.

Medical Standard of Care

When proving negligence for a medical malpractice case, you need to show that your healthcare provider didn’t meet the medical standard of care. The standard of care is how a competent doctor would have treated you if you had been their patient. It can’t be any doctor saying how they would have gone about your treatment, they should have a similar background and treat similar illnesses or injuries as your healthcare provider.

This doctor would be an expert witness in your case. They would say what the standard of care should have been and then it can be determined if your healthcare provider failed to meet it or not. Negligence can include surgical errors, leaving medical equipment in a patient after surgery, medication errors, failing to diagnose or misdiagnosing an illness, or misreading laboratory results.

But these cases tend to be complicated. When someone undergoes a procedure, complications can arise. This doesn’t necessarily mean that medical malpractice occurred. There’s a difference between a patient has a reaction to something that no medical professional knew about or could have predicted and a doctor not reading the patient’s records and giving them something that they would have a reaction to and it’s documented in their file. An expert witness could differentiate between these two scenarios and explain it in court.

You deserve for your healthcare providers to meet the medical standard of care. If you’ve suffered from medical malpractice, get in touch with Thomas Law Offices today.

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At Thomas Law Offices, our personal injury attorneys recognize that our potential clients are likely going through some of the most difficult times of their lives. We don't want you to have to worry about paying out of pocket for legal advice when you're just starting to learn your legal rights and options. That's why we provide free case evaluations. We'll offer our expert advice about your potential case and walk you through how we can help you.

Call us or fill out the form below to tell us about your potential case and a personal injury lawyer will get back to you as quickly as possible.

Meet Our Founder

Tad Thomas - Trial Lawyer

Tad Thomas

Managing Partner

Tad Thomas has dedicated his practice to representing plaintiffs in various types of civil litigation, including personal injury, business litigation, class actions, and multi-district litigation.

After graduating with his law degree in 2000 from Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University, Mr. Thomas immediately opened his own private practice and began representing injury victims.

In 2011, Thomas Law Offices was established in Louisville, Kentucky. Over the past decade, Mr. Thomas has expanded his firm and now has offices in three additional locations: Cincinnati, Ohio, Columbia, Missouri, and Chicago, Illinois. He is also a frequent lecturer on topics like trial skills and ethics and technology.

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