medical malpractice

A doctor-patient relationship was established. You can’t file medical malpractice charges against a medical professional you spoke to in a hotel lobby or saw once at the hospital at which you received care. It’s easy to prove a physician-patient relationship existed if you signed for the doctor’s services and he or she treated you.

The doctor was negligent. This is more difficult to establish. Just because your treatment is ineffective doesn’t mean your doctor was carelessly negligent or behaved improperly. Whether the doctor was reasonably skillful and careful is often the main focus of a malpractice claim. To be found negligent, a doctor must be found to have deviated from the appropriate standard of care.

The doctor’s negligence caused the injury or illness. Many malpractice cases obviously start with patients who are already sick or injured, so it can be difficult to tell if a doctor’s negligence is to blame for the decline of a person’s health. This gets even more difficult to determine when a patient is critically ill. To successfully sue for malpractice, a patient or their family must show that it is “more likely than not” that a physician’s incompetence directly caused illness or injury. This usually requires testimony from another medical expert.

The injury or illness led to specific damages. Even when a doctor is found to be negligent, a patient can’t sue for malpractice if no harm was done. Patients can only sue for physical pain, mental anguish, additional medical bills, and lost work or earning capacity. If a doctor’s mistake doesn’t cause any of these, a lawsuit might not hold up in court.