Most of us look to doctors as honorable, trustworthy, and competent professionals who have our best interests at heart when we seek treatment from them. We view other healthcare providers similarly.
However, each College Park medical malpractice lawyer in our office has witnessed how this isn’t always the case. Physicians, nurses, counselors, and other medical professionals can make mistakes, causing patients to suffer adverse health consequences, including death.
This is where firms like ours, GDH Law, come in. We advocate for victims who have suffered injuries or illnesses, and we want to help you, too.
Let’s sit down and have a conversation about your health before and after a provider’s mistake. Depending on what you share with us, we may decide you have a pursuable civil claim for compensation. Contact our office right away.
What Qualifies as Medical Malpractice in Maryland?
Medical negligence can take on the following forms, including:
- Misdiagnoses or delayed diagnoses: An incorrect diagnosis may occur because a doctor fails to ask the correct questions or order the correct imaging to make the correct one. Situations like these may result in a patient receiving the wrong treatment or an untimely one, which can cause their condition to deteriorate.
- Radiologic errors: The physician reading X-rays, CT scans, MRIs, ultrasounds, and other imaging studies must do so correctly, otherwise, a condition may be incorrectly diagnosed or untreated, leading to a decline in a patient’s health.
- Anesthesia and surgical errors: Most outpatient medical procedures and surgeries are performed under a sedative, and careless calculations of the appropriate doses can cause a patient to have breathing difficulties and other issues. Additionally, instances where surgical instruments are left in patients, the wrong body part is treated, and other avoidable mistakes occur during surgery, which can leave a patient in a worse state than when they initially went into the operating room.
- Medication errors: A physician may make a mistake when prescribing a drug, such as not checking to see if there may be an interaction with another medication the patient is taking. Additionally, a nurse or pharmacist may administer the wrong drug or the incorrect dosage to a patient.
- Informed consent issues: Doctors have an obligation to advise patients who are preparing to undergo certain treatments, such as surgeries, of their diagnosis, the benefits and downsides associated with recommended treatment options, as well as alternate options available. This should be done in a way and language that is understandable to the patient. They should also be allowed to ask questions. If a doctor fails to consent a patient and something goes awry while they’re performing a procedure, a patient may be able to sue them for that poor outcome.
- Childbirth injuries: Many potential injuries to mom and baby can be greatly minimized with adequate prenatal care and in-hospital monitoring. However, if doctors fail to pay attention to and respond to indicators, serious harm can occur. For example, a deprivation of oxygen can result in Cerebral Palsy, or the fetus getting trapped in the mom’s pelvis, can result in shoulder dystocia.
- Misreading Pathology: Pathologists are physicians who train, in part, by studying slides of confirmed diagnoses, say of a condition like cancer, versus ones showing non-malignancies (benign) results. A pathologist’s reading of the slide under the microscope can impact the course of treatment a doctor recommends and thus a patient’s prognosis, so when they make a mistake, the consequences can be significant.
The examples of medical malpractice highlighted above are only a few of the many ways doctors and other healthcare providers can make mistakes that have significant long-term implications on a patient’s life.
You owe it to yourself to consult with a College Park medical malpractice lawyer about what happened to you or a family member so that they can determine if negligence played a role in the outcome.
Your attorney may advise you that you have a viable claim if they find that the provider deviated from the typical standard of care in your case. Contact our law firm today to schedule that consultation.
It’s completely free.
Health Care Providers You Can Hold Liable for Malpractice
From the descriptions of these different types of medical malpractice, you might be able to come up with at least a partial list of one or more medical providers you can hold accountable for the harm you suffered, including:
- Primary care or emergency room physicians
- Pharmacists
- Radiologists
- Pathologists
- Surgeons
- Surgical techs
- Nurses
However, not all medical negligence occurs in the settings above. Other medical providers our team at GDH Law takes legal action against on behalf of injured, ill, or deceased clients include:
- Mental health counselors or therapists, including licensed clinical social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists
- Chiropractors
- Dentists, periodontists, orthodontists, and oral surgeons
- Respiratory therapists
- Optometrists and ophthalmologists
- Other types of doctors
While doctors and emotional or behavioral therapists tend to carry their own malpractice insurance, which allows you to sue them directly for their negligent actions, nurses and other support personnel are typically covered by their employer’s policy.
This means that you’d name them as a defendant in your filing, but ultimately the party responsible for paying a settlement will typically be the insurer for the medical center that employs them.
Understanding the Standard of Care
The standard of care rule is at the heart of medical malpractice cases. Put simply; there’s a norm or standard protocol which doctors with similar training in a common geographic area follow in diagnosing or treating patients with certain conditions.
That’s essentially what a “standard of care” is. That standard also serves as the proverbial “measuring stick” for assessing whether your healthcare provider acted in a way that aligned or deviated from how a patient’s presenting concerns or procedure should have been handled.
If a lawyer determines that a health care provider took certain actions that deviated from standard protocol, and that action or inaction caused a patient to experience declining health, illness, or injury, then they’re likely to advise their client that their claim is worth pursuing in civil court.
Compensation You Can Recover by Suing Medical Professionals
Just like any other personal injury case, you may be entitled to recover compensation for medical bills, lost wages, and non-economic damages like pain and suffering as a victim of physician and other medical errors.
However, you should know that while Maryland law doesn’t cap how much you can recover in economic losses in cases like these, as of 2023, it does cap non-economic losses at $875,000. That amount increases to $1,093,750 in wrongful death cases filed by two or more of the decedent’s family members.
How Long Does Maryland Allow You to Sue for Medical Negligence?
The length of time you have to file an insurance claim or file a lawsuit for medical malpractice is known as a statute of limitations. Maryland Courts and Judicial Proceedings Code Section 5-109 spells out the amount of time that our state allows victims to pursue legal action for this type of negligence:
- Five years from the onset of the injury
- Three years after the discovery of the injury
Whichever of the two dates above comes first is the statute of limitations applicable in a respective plaintiff’s case.
Cases Involving Physician Wrongdoing Are Notoriously Complex
Many attorneys steer clear from handling cases involving healthcare provider errors because, on the surface, it seems challenging to pinpoint how their actions deviated from the norm.
However, as our attorneys are seasoned in handling these cases, we have a team of medical experts that we often consult with for guidance. This ensures that every potentially negligent party is held accountable for their actions. By doing this, we do our part to ensure that patients who fall victim to preventable harm don’t have to live with both the physical and financial consequences of negligence.
Reach out to us by phone or email to discuss your case. Meeting with a College Park medical malpractice lawyer is completely free and, if you hire us, we only get paid if we recover a settlement on your behalf.
