Did you know that the third leading cause of death in the US is medical errors?

According to a study from Johns Hopkins, more than 250,000 people die every year due to medical mistakes in the US.

When you go to the hospital or visit a doctor, you are looking to receive treatment for your medical conditions. Unfortunately, it is not terribly uncommon for medical professionals to make mistakes that cause harm or even death in their patients.

Are you curious about the most common kinds of medical malpractice lawsuits? Let’s take a look at six frequently occurring types of medical negligence in the US.

1. Misdiagnosis

When a medical professional misses or delays in diagnosis of a serious condition, it can mean that the patient misses treatment opportunities. Because of this, the patient might have been prevented with serious harm or even killed.

This is one of the most common causes of medical malpractice lawsuit cases.

If a condition is misdiagnosed, the patient might be prescribed treatments that are not appropriate for them. This can result in harm to them.

In order to win a medical malpractice lawsuit of this nature, it must be shown that a competent doctor under the same circumstances would not have made the same mistake. If this can be proven, then the medical professional who treated the patient might be liable for malpractice.

2. Surgical Errors

There are a number of mistakes that surgeons can make in the operating room. For one, they might make a negligent error during the surgery. Examples of this include operating on the wrong body part, puncturing a blood vessel or an organ, or leaving surgical equipment inside the body.

Nursing staff can also be negligent during post-operative care. This might mean following improper procedures in a way that leads to infection, giving the wrong medications, or not getting adequate instruction to the patient for their own recovery needs.

Because medical malpractice is so common, you can hire a lawyer for medical malpractice who specializes in cases just like yours.

3. Failure to Treat

In this common type of medical malpractice lawsuit, the medical professional does diagnose the condition correctly. However, they do not treat the condition in line with the acceptable standard of care. If there is no follow-up care for the patient is discharged too soon, the patient can become injured or their condition might worsen.

4. Birth Injuries

Another common medical malpractice negligence lawsuit revolves around childbirth injuries. Some of the injuries that can be caused by medical malpractice either to a fetus or to a child during the birth process can be quite severe.

Malpractice can result in fractured bones, brain injuries, or partial paralysis. However, it’s important to understand that many of these conditions can also be caused by natural causes.

There is a medical professional is found to have caused these conditions through their negligence, though, they might be liable for malpractice. This is also the case if the doctor failed to take steps towards treating a disorder or condition that could have led to these outcomes.

There are a number of different junctures when injuries can arise. The mother, the fetus, or both can be harmed if they received negligent treatment during the pregnancy. This might mean:

• Failing to identify birth defects
• Failing to diagnose the mother’s medical condition
• Failing to diagnose a contagious disease
• Failing to identify ectopic pregnancies

Some of the issues that can arise from negligence during childbirth include failing to notice that the baby is tangled in the umbilical cord and failing to anticipate potential complications because of the size of the baby. Other negligent acts include not administering a cesarean when needed, failing to respond to fetal distress signals, or improperly using a vacuum extractor or forceps.

5. Prescription Drug Errors

One of the most common types of medical malpractice lawsuits revolve around medication errors. This type of error can occur in a number of different ways.

For example, a doctor might not notice a potentially harmful medication interaction. Another example is if they administered a drug inappropriately or made a mistake on the initial prescription.

It is not uncommon for injuries to result in a hospital setting because the wrong patient received the wrong medication. In general, though, the most common type of medication errors have to do with patients receiving improper medication dosages.

6. Anesthesia Errors

Errors with anesthesia do not occur frequently. However, when they do, they can actually be more dangerous than mistakes made in surgery.

If an anesthesiologist makes even the smallest mistake, a patient can be left with brain damage, permanent injury, or even death. Some of the most common causes of anesthesiologist malpractice include:

Failing to tell the patient what they need to do before an operation

Failing to investigate the medical history of the patient

Anesthesiologists can also make mistakes by not monitoring a patient’s vital signs, giving them too much anesthesia, using defective equipment, or improperly placing a tracheal to help the patient breathe.

Medical Malpractice Lawsuits Can Help You Receive Compensation For Negligent Treatment

It really is disturbing to learn that medical errors are the third-leading cause of death in the US, coming after only heart disease and cancer. If you have found yourself injured due to medical malpractice or a loved one was killed because of negligence, you should seek the counsel of a medical malpractice lawyer.

Did you find this article on medical malpractice lawsuits interesting? If so, be sure to check out the rest of our blog for more fascinating and informative content!