When people go to a doctor, emergency room or to the hospital for treatment, they expect to receive medical support that will correct the health problem or problems. However, and tragically, sometimes the very professionals patients trust are the ones that make errors, mistakes or omissions in their treatment or diagnosis that end up causing harm or even loss of life.
In these situations, taking to a medical malpractice attorney is essential. Any patient seeing a doctor or going into a medical facility in McHenry or surrounding areas has the right to talk to an attorney if they believed the doctor, the staff or the facility failed to provide the correct treatment.
The Challenges
While it may seem like medical malpractice is a very straightforward type of legal case, it is often extremely complicated. Not only does the medical malpractice attorney have to know medical procedures and practices, but he or she has to be able to prove that the damages were a direct result of the actions, or errors, by the doctor, staff or facility.
Proving a medical professional failed use a standard treatment protocol, made an error, or failed to notify a patient about the risks involved, is a very difficult area of the law. The standard of care is particularly challenging since there are differences based on age, other health issues, and even what is the procedure at a given facility compared to other similar facilities in the same geographic area treating the same category and type of patient.
Causation
To make the situation even more difficult, the medical malpractice attorney has to be able to provide that the mistake, error or omission in treatment by the doctor or other medical staff directly lead to the injury or the death.
For example, if a patient was admitted to an emergency room and had surgery on a leg and later suffered a heart attack and died, it is not likely that the doctor’s actions in the surgical theater could be found to be the direct cause of the death. This would be true even if the doctor used a different surgical procedure than one typically used for that type of injury.
The longer that anyone waits to file a medical malpractice case the more challenging it becomes for the attorney in McHenry. Early assessment makes it easier for the attorney to talk to witnesses, gather expert testimony and develop a strong case that may lead to a settlement out of court, expediting a settlement to help people with the compensation they deserve.