Medical Malpractice - What You Should Know
Medical malpractice happens when a medical practitioner acts in a negligent manner (or fails to take a medically appropriate action when he or she should), deviating from the accepted standards of practice in the medical community, and causes injury or death to the patient. Those standards of acceptable care can vary significantly from state to state, as do the laws and regulations that medical practitioners must meet. Medical practitioners are required to maintain professional liability insurance due to the risks and costs associated with lawsuits based on medical malpractice.
Examples of medical malpractice can include:
* Failure to diagnose, or misdiagnosis of a disease or medical condition;
* Failure to provide appropriate treatment for a medical condition;
* Unreasonable delay in treating a diagnosed medical condition;
Medical practitioners can also be held legally liable for conducting medical procedures on patients when patients do not give “informed consent,” and the procedure thereafter results in harm to the patient, even in cases where the procedure is performed properly. As an example, should a doctor neglect to inform a patient that a surgical procedure has a 50% chance of causing paralysis, the patient lacks the necessary information to make an informed choice on whether or not to go through with the operation. If the patient then has the procedure and is paralyzed as a result, the surgeon can be held liable even if the operation was performed flawlessly, since the patient may well have refused the procedure if fully aware of the risks involved.
If you are looking for the best in medical malpractice information, and particularly if you are located in the northeastern Pennsylvania, you'll find all the information you need here.
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