Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice is a particular kind of personal injury resulting from the negligence of a professional healthcare provider. This could be a hospital or nursing home, a doctor, nurse or staff member. A patient's medical malpractice claim is not valid just because his or her treatment was unsuccessful. The test of liability is whether the performance of the medical duties which resulted in harm to the patient departed from the standard of practice of those with similar training and experience.

Examples of medical malpractice would include a careless surgery, failure to properly diagnose an injury or illness, administering a drug that is inappropriate for the patient's condition, or improperly giving an anesthetic. Special laws in California apply to nursing home neglect of patients.

It is necessary to establish that the injuries were caused by the negligence of the provider. This can be complicated if the patient was already ill when the negligent treatment was initiated. In this case, the attorney must be able to show what the natural progression of the underlying condition would have been had the patient received proper care.

It is important to retain an experienced Southern California medical malpractice lawyer; i.e., an attorney with extensive medical knowledge, enabling him to navigate through the medical issues and terminology to prove the claim. California statutes of limitation govern the filing of malpractice claims and prevent filing once a certain amount of time has passed after the malpractice.  It is essential, therefore, to promptly retain counsel.

Please click here to go to our
San Diego Medical Malpractice Website.