Medical Malpractice vs Negligence: A Detailed Analysis
If you’ve been injured by a medical professional, you may be able to seek compensation. However, it’s important to understand the difference between medical malpractice vs negligence. Your attorney can help you determine which type of case you have and whether you may be entitled to compensation.
Read on for more
Introduction
It doesn’t matter how well someone is trained or how much experience they have in their field, mistakes can happen. Sometimes they lack intent, while other times, they may happen due to careless behavior. Either way, serious consequences can occur – especially in the healthcare industry.
If you have been injured by a medical professional, you may be entitled to compensation. The first step is to discuss with your attorney whether you are dealing with medical malpractice vs negligence
What is Medical Malpractice?
Medical malpractice occurs when a patient gets injured due to the medical professional’s lack of consideration and failure to follow certain standards of care, such as guidelines and protocols that have been put in place to protect against such a thing.
In this case, the professional never wants to cause harm to a patient. But things can happen when they don’t perform their duty as they should. And it can be said they are intentionally negligent by acting in a reckless manner – and avoiding the proper steps involved in proper treatment.
What is Medical Negligence?
The term negligence refers to someone’s careless or reckless behavior that may cause harm to property or injure another party. In personal injury cases, negligence often plays a big role. After all, if someone is negligent, they can be held liable for damages in a court of law as long as you can prove:
- Duty: Someone was supposed to act in a way that would protect your safety
- Breach: They failed to do so
- Causation: This failure caused your injury
- Damages: You were injured due to their failure to protect your safety
So how does negligence compare to medical negligence? The latter still requires that you prove the duty, breach, causation, and damages. Except, since you are suing a medical professional, you will also need to offer proof that the individual did not perform their duty due to violation of an acceptable medical standard of care. In other words, would the treatment you received have been the same with other skilled medical professionals?
Medical negligence involves an unintentional mistake due to careless, negligent behavior.
Examples of Medical Malpractice vs Negligence
Because these are both quite similar, sometimes it helps to have an example to fully understand the difference. Below you will find a couple of examples for each.
Examples of medical malpractice:
- Failure to double-check the blood type of an organ donor/recipient
- Performing surgery on the wrong part of the body
- Using the wrong egg/sperm during IVF treatments
- Improper use of anesthesia, not giving enough, or failing to administer it all together
- Leaving a surgical tool in a patient
- Disregarding a patient’s medical history
Examples of medical negligence:
- Errors in prescribing medication
- Missing an important, life-altering diagnosis
- Giving the wrong type of anesthesia without taking allergies into consideration
- Careless mistakes during surgery or childbirth
Both Require an Injury
You cannot sue a medical professional for medical negligence or malpractice if you are not injured. These personal injury cases include a lawsuit suing for damages related to the injury. Without one, you don’t have a case.
Remember that just because you have an injury doesn’t mean you have a case. Sometimes genuine mistakes happen, and it isn’t really the result of negligence or malpractice. In these stances, you won’t have enough to file a lawsuit.
If you have been injured at the hands of a medical professional, then it is important that you discuss your situation with an attorney to find out the best way to proceed.
Biggest Difference Between Medical Malpractice vs Negligence
When it comes to medical malpractice and medical negligence, the biggest difference comes down to intent. For instance, you have to be able to prove that the medical professional was aware that their actions would or could result in harm – but chose to proceed anywhere. This means the doctor intentionally acted in error and would be considered medical malpractice.
Medical negligence does not require intent. In this situation, the medical professional never intended to cause harm because they acted recklessly or carelessly, and an injury resulted.
Types of Damages
If you hire an attorney and decide that you have enough evidence to file a lawsuit for medical malpractice or medical negligence, you may be entitled to damages.
In these cases, the injured party may be awarded economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages include things like medical expenses (past, present, and future), lost wages, and loss of earning capacity. These are things that have an actual dollar amount. On the other hand, non-economic damages include pain, loss of enjoyment of life, wrongful death, and so on.
New legislation was signed into law in California, raising the cap on non-economic damages. And this will continue to rise annually until it caps out at $1M for wrongful death and $750,000 for all other medical malpractice.
Punitive damages are sometimes awarded in these medical cases, but not always. They are not rewarded to give compensation to the injured party but rather as punishment to the medical professional.
Why You Need an Attorney
When you accuse a medical professional of medical negligence or malpractice, you are jeopardizing their career and reputation. Therefore, you want to ensure that you have a case – and the evidence necessary to prove it – before you file your claim.
Unfortunately, doing this on your own and going up against medical professionals and their legal teams will never lead to a successful outcome. You need an experienced personal injury attorney who can dig through all the details of your case and figure out the best way to approach it to get you the compensation you deserve.
Remember, you need an injury to sue for medical malpractice or medical negligence. Yet not all injuries mean you have a case. Discuss the details of your case with an attorney who will look out for your best interest.
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