What is Medical Malpractice?
Medical Malpractice is, “bad, wrong, or injudicious treatment of a patient, professionally and in respect to the particular disease or injury, resulting. in injury, unnecessary suffering, or death to the patient, and proceeding from ignorance, carelessness, want of proper professional skill, disregard of established rules or principles, neglect, or a malicious or criminal intent .” (Black’s Law Dictionary 1111. 4th Ed. Rev. 1968). Like general malpractice, it refers to negligence in a professional setting. However, it is limited to healthcare providers, such as a doctor or hospital.
Medical malpractice occurs when a healthcare provider deviates from the applicable standard of care, intentionally or unintentionally, and harms a patient. Cases such as Napier v. Greenzweig show that medical malpractice can be as blatant as ignoring understood rules, or it can be a mistake like a severe surgical error or a misdiagnosis. Medical malpractice is considered to be a serious issue, and healthcare providers found liable for malpractice often pay extensive damages. Occasionally, a doctor may lose their license to practice medicine if malpractice is severe enough or repeated.
Fully understanding cases of medical malpractice often involves some level of medical knowledge. Because of this, it is difficult to prove medical malpractice in court, and expert witnesses are typically needed to testify about a healthcare provider’s negligence.
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Medical Malpractice Frequently Asked Questions
Medical Malpractice Questions and Answers
What is medical malpractice?
Legal definitions vary slightly from state to state, but as a general rule medical malpractice (also known as medical negligence) means that a health care provider caused injury or death to a patient by failing to act within the applicable standard of care. Essentially, a physician or other health care provider commits medical malpractice and is negligent when he or she fails to act in a reasonable way under the circumstances and the unreasonable conduct causes harm.
How can I find out if I have a case?
Because medical malpractice law is very complex, the best way to know is by talking to an experienced medical malpractice lawyer. Be sure to tell the lawyer exactly what happened to you, from the first time you visited your doctor through your last contact. […]
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Medical errors third-leading cause of death in America
A “Medical Errors” report just released by U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer calls medical errors a “quiet and largely unseen tragedy.” New research estimates up to 440,000 Americans are dying each year as the result of medical errors and other preventable hospital errors. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and based on these figures, medical/hospital errors is the third-leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease and cancer.
Senator Boxer stated, “these deaths are all the more heartbreaking for families because they are preventable.”
The Partnership for Patients, a new public-private partnership funded through the Affordable Care Act, released a list of the 9 most common medical errors:
1. Adverse drug events
2. Catheter-associated urinary tract infections
3. Central line-associated blood stream infections
4. Injuries from falls and immobility
5. Obstetrical adverse effects
6. Bedsores
7. […]
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Client Victories
Top Settlements & Verdicts
We have listed below a sampling of our top settlements and verdicts. We are not able to list all of our seven and eight figure victories here because of confidentiality restrictions. We chose the following list of publicly disclosed settlements and verdicts as they are representative of the types of injury and accident cases that we handle and illustrate how hard we fight for our clients. Keep in mind that we accept all kinds of cases, large and small. Our mission is to help injured victims — so call us today for a FREE case evaluation.
$26 Million truck accident settlement.
$32.25 Million Settlement for a tragic airplane crash.
$20 Million Commercial vehicle settlement.
$17.5 Million Jury verdict in teens’ death caused by car accident.
$12 Million Verdict for forklift accident victim who lost her leg.
$11 Million Settlement for truck accident. […]
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Caroline Munley
Caroline Munley is a top-rated personal injury lawyer and a fierce guardian of victims’ rights. As Munley Law Personal Injury Attorneys’s managing partner, Caroline has won millions of dollars for car accident, commercial truck crash, and workplace injury victims.
She is widely recognized as an impassioned advocate and tenacious courtroom lawyer, and has been named a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer since 2022. Since 2018, Caroline has been listed among the Best Lawyers in America for Personal Injury Litigation-Plaintiffs and Workers’ Compensation Law-Claimants for Northeastern Pennsylvania. She was also honored to be named to the lists of Top 25 Women Trial Lawyers in PA, and Multi-Million Dollar Advocates. She was named as one of the Top 25 Medical Malpractice Trial Lawyers in Pennsylvania by the Medical Malpractice Trial Lawyers Association.
Caroline is certified as a specialist in the practice of workers’ […]
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Hospital Patients Given Wrong Medicine On Discharge
Three out of four patients go home from the hospital with the wrong prescriptions or a lack of understanding about their medications.
That’s the disturbing conclusion of a new study from Yale-New Haven Hospital.
The chief researcher, Dr. Leora Horwitz, who also practices at the hospital, said health care providers “do a relatively poor job of educating patients about their medications.”
Medical malpractice mistakes involving medication errors cause injuries to more than 1.3 million persons a year.
This is from the New Haven Register:
A recent study [Dr. Horowitz] led looked at 377 patients at Yale-New Haven Hospital, ages 64 and older, who had been admitted with heart failure, acute coronary syndrome or pneumonia, then discharged to home.
Of that group, 307 patients – 81 percent – either experienced a provider error in their discharge medications or had no understanding of at least one intended medication change…. […]
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