There are a number of ways that a medical professional can cause an injury to a patient that is under their care. In many medical malpractice cases, some injuries occur at a higher number than others. If you or a loved one have been harmed by the negligent care of a doctor, knowing what to look can help you get the justice you deserve.

What are some common medical malpractice lawsuits?

Medical malpractice occurs when a medical professional was negligent and thus led to an injury that caused you specific physical, social, or emotional damage.

Some of the most common causes of medical malpractice claims are:

• Misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose a disease or condition
• Negligence in prenatal care or during childbirth that led to childbirth injuries
• Prescribing the wrong medication or dosage of medication
• Errors made with anesthesia
• Mistakes made in the operating room

Since there are a few medical professionals that you will interact with in treatment and care, sometimes medical malpractice claims involve more than one person. For example, if you were injured as a result of an improper dosage of medication, the doctor may have prescribed the right drug, but the pharmacy may have filled the wrong amount or the nurse may have misread and administered the incorrect dose. Therefore the doctor was not necessarily medically negligent, but the other medical professionals who were trained to fill and administer the drug were. However, if the doctor improperly prescribed medication, then they are responsible for their mistake.

Just because a doctor made a mistake or because you are unhappy with the type of treatment you received does not mean that a doctor is guilty of medical malpractice. The crux of medical malpractice lawsuits is proving that the doctor was incompetent and other medical professional in their exact same position would not have made the same decisions that your doctor made.