Law Articles - Steps For A Victim Of Doctor Malpractice To Adhere To


by Jon Arnold - Date: 2009-11-18 - Word Count: 595 Share This!

What do you do if they have been the victim of doctor malpractice or perhaps a close friend or family member has been a victim? Numerous people, surprisingly enough, do not do anything. They assume that doctors are human and permitted to make mistakes, or maybe they assume that since they signed that waiver form prior to surgery, they have forfeited their right to any malpractice litigation.

There is nothing that could be further from the truth for either assumption. When you are invited or required to sign that waiver form prior to a surgery, that act does not waive your rights if the hospital or physician screws up the surgery royally out of negligence, mistreatment, inappropriate medications, and many more possible actions, particularly when those mistakes result in damage or injury to the patient that may be lasting, or even death. That waiver form is actually quite ineffectual, but the hospital or physician want you to believe you have waived your rights, where in reality you have not.

There is a conflict however in doctor malpractice and the end result of an operation not being what you wanted it to be. For instance, if you have surgery performed to remove a tumor and the doctor has performed everything correctly but was not able to remove the tumor, you do not have a legitimate malpractice case just because you were not pleased with the end result, because there was no negligence involved.

The greatest task you can do any time you are admitted to the hospital and perhaps looking at a surgery is to maintain detailed notes about what happened every step of the way. Maintain a notebook or diary and write down facts such as what medications are administered, what the physician states, as well as dates and times of each event. If anything does go wrong during the procedure, these notes you have maintained will be a very strong point in your favor if you want the greatest chances of filing a successful doctor malpractice lawsuit.

If you elect to move forward with a lawsuit, do not try it on your own. You should acquire the help of a local experienced malpractice lawyer who understands malpractice law and can counsel you as to what to expect and how to proceed, as well as representing you if it end up in court. There are typically no legal fees for this, since the lawyer will normally take a percentage of the settlement as their charge, and if they do not win your lawsuit, there is no fee to be paid. But with that stated, most valid malpractice lawsuits are settled out of court since neither the physician nor the hospital want to receive the bulk of negative publicity that a court case would create for them.

If you believe you have been a victim of doctor malpractice, then you need to do something about it. Meet with a lawyer to talk over the lawsuit. It may not right the wrong that happened but a malpractice settlement can make life a bit simpler for you as you move forward. Do not forget, you have rights, and that waiver that was signed does not eliminate those legal rights in the least. The doctor or hospital may want you to think you have given up your legal rights, but they know you really have not. For more insights and additional information about Doctor Malpractice as well as finding a wealth of resources to help you possibly pursue a malpractice suit, please visit our web site at http://www.malpracticeinfonow.com


Related Tags: medical malpractice, malpractice, hospital malpractice, malpractice lawsuit

Your Article Search Directory : Find in Articles

© The article above is copyrighted by it's author. You're allowed to distribute this work according to the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license.
 

Recent articles in this category:



Most viewed articles in this category: