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Medical Malpractice Law

Medical malpractice cases are those that result from injuries that result from the negligence of medical professionals. There are numerous laws that apply to these cases which include statutes of limitations and damages.

A patient is not treated with the same level of care as other doctors would be in similar circumstances. This includes misdiagnosis, surgical mistakes.

Complaint

Medical malpractice is a subset of tort law which addresses professional negligence. It is defined as any act or omission committed by doctors that goes against accepted standards of practice in the medical community and causes an injury to the patient [22The law of medical malpractice is a complex one.

The lawsuit process begins when you make a civil court complaint when you've been injured by hospital negligence. In this document, you list the main facts of your case. You should also mention the hospital you worked in and any physicians involved in your case. Depending on the circumstances, you may decide to make an agreement in advance that health care providers will not be named individually in the lawsuit (this is called "no-name agreements").

Then you write down the injuries and the dollar amount associated with each one. Included are the past and future medical expenses, lost income due to the inability to work, pain and discomfort, and any other losses that you have suffered as a result of a negligence of a doctor. It is important to provide these documents as early as you can your lawyers in order for them to begin a thorough review.

Summons

If you suspect that you have been injured as a result of medical malpractice, you lawyer will prepare a summons and complaint. They are then filed with the court. The clerk of court assigns a unique number to the case. This number is referred to as an index number and it is used to track the case through the courts.

A lawsuit takes a lot of time, effort and money by the lawyer representing the plaintiff. These resources are needed to pay for legal discovery and to pay for expert medical witnesses. Even if the medical malpractice action is not successful the case will cost the attorney an enormous deal of time and work product.

A lawsuit must show that the health professional violated the law, and this breach caused injury to the plaintiff and the injury is serious enough to warrant legal recourse. In the United States, a patient must be able to prove four elements or requirements for a valid medical malpractice claim: the existence of a duty, a breach of duty; damages; and causation. Medical malpractice claims are governed under state law. However in certain situations the case may be transferred to federal district court.

Discovery

The formal discovery process starts when a complaint or civil summons is filed with the court of jurisdiction. Your medical malpractice lawyer will spend a great deal of time gathering evidence to support the case. This could include reviewing medical records with the assistance of a medical review firm.

This is a crucial stage in the legal process, since it can help your attorney discover vital details to prove your case. It is, however, one of the longest-running aspects of a medical malpractice lawsuit.

In the pretrial discovery phase your attorney will seek certain documents and interrogatories from defendants in your case. The defendants are given the opportunity to respond to these questions. These questions are posed under the oath, and must be answered truthfully. These questions are used by defendants to raise defenses against your case. This is why it is essential to hire an experienced medical malpractice lawyer. They will ensure that all the evidence is presented in easy to comprehend manner for juries and judges.

Request for Admission

Before a lawsuit involving medical malpractice can be filed, several states require that the injured patient submit the case to a panel of medical experts who will listen to arguments and scrutinize evidence and expert testimony to determine if the patient's claim is substantiated enough to proceed. The law also requires that medical malpractice lawsuits be filed in the court within a specific time frame, also known as the statute of limitations.

To allow the legal team representing the patient to make the medical malpractice claim, it has to be proved that the healthcare professional did not meet the accepted standard of care in their specific area of expertise. This is often referred to as the standard of care yardstick and it's vital that the injured patient's legal team can identify specific instances of deviance from the standard of care.

Trial

To prove that a doctor committed malpractice, a patient needs to establish that: (1) the doctor owed her a professional duty of care; (2) the physician did not fulfill this duty, by breaking the standard of care; (3) this breach resulted in injury; and (4) the injury caused damages. This last requirement requires medical expert testimony to assist jurors in understanding the applicable medical standards. It can be difficult for an injured victim and her legal team to bridge the gap between their shared knowledge and experience, and the highly specialized and professional expertise required to establish the extent of malpractice.

Malpractice claims are usually filed in state trial courts, which have jurisdiction for the case, however, under limited circumstances, they can be filed in federal district court. Both trial courts are subject to the same laws as other civil litigants. During the depositions of the defendant doctors, the attorneys from both sides will ask questions. After direct examination the opposing attorney may question the testifying physician. This process continues until questions from both sides are answered.