Medical malpractice cases can be extremely complicated and require a knowledgeable Santa Cruz County Medical Malpractice Lawyer. If you hire an experienced attorney, your chances of securing compensation are much higher.

Medical malpractice law ensures that patients receive compensation for injuries or damages resulting from medical errors. These include misdiagnoses, surgical mistakes, medication errors and birth injuries.

Failure to Diagnose

One of the most dangerous medical mistakes involves failing to properly identify a condition. Some diseases like heart attacks and cancer must be promptly diagnosed in order to save a patient’s life or get them the treatment they need to overcome the disease.

Competent doctors take the process of diagnosing patients seriously. They utilize a variety of resources, including patients’ reports of symptoms, various diagnostic tests, and information from other medical professionals to ensure an accurate diagnosis.

Failing to meet the standard of care in this area is a form of malpractice. To successfully bring a failure to diagnose claim, the plaintiff must prove that the healthcare provider owed them a professional relationship and did not live up to this obligation in their actions.

Surgical Errors

Surgical errors can have serious and permanent consequences. A medical malpractice lawyer can help you claim compensation for your losses if you have suffered because of a surgical error, such as an incorrect incision, excessive bleeding or infection.

Some surgical errors are the result of insufficient pre-op training or failure to review a patient’s medical history or discuss potential risks and complications. Others are caused by poor communication between healthcare professionals or a surgeon’s lack of skill in performing a particular surgery.

Surgical errors can also include leaving foreign objects in the body, such as sponges or surgical equipment. This can lead to dangerous infections, internal bleeding or permanent scarring and disfigurement. These types of mistakes are usually caused by protocol violations and medical negligence.

Medication Errors

Medication errors can be caused by doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, pharmacists, and any other healthcare professional involved in patient treatment. These mistakes can be devastating, especially if they result in severe side effects or death.

Mistakes include prescribing a medication that could interact negatively with other medications, overlooking a known allergy to a drug, giving too much or too little of a medicine, or administering a medicine through an incorrect route. All of these can be medical malpractice if they cause harm.

However, many errors do not rise to the level of medical malpractice. For example, if a doctor prescribes a medication that is known to have certain side effects and the patient does not experience those side effects, the doctor may not be guilty of malpractice.

Birth Injuries

Some birth injuries are caused by complications beyond anyone’s control. Others occur when doctors make preventable errors during labor and delivery.

These mistakes can result in permanent damage, requiring families to pay for long-term medical treatment and adaptive equipment. They can also affect a child’s ability to live a normal life, leading to depression and other mental health issues.

For example, if a doctor uses excessive force to help a newborn through the birth canal, the baby may suffer bone fractures or Erb’s Palsy (damage to nerves in the upper arms and hands). Other common injuries include facial paralysis and hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). These conditions often require lifetime care. Your attorney can help you collect evidence and build a strong case for compensation. This includes medical records, expert testimony, invoices, and other documentation.

Wrongful Death

Doctors train for years to provide their patients with the best care possible, but even the most competent doctors are not immune to errors. When these mistakes lead to serious injury or death, family members deserve compensation.

To win a malpractice claim, you must show that your loved one’s healthcare provider deviated from the accepted standard of care and that this deviation was a direct cause of your loved one’s injury or death. In many cases, expert testimony is required to establish the standard of care and how your loved one’s healthcare provider’s actions deviated from it.

Wrongful death lawsuits compensate surviving family members for losses such as lost income, medical and funeral expenses, loss of companionship and guidance, and mental anguish. Typically, the court will award these damages to your loved one’s estate.