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Legal Representation for Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

When you go to the doctor, you trust your symptoms will be handled competently. Unfortunately, that isn’t always what happens. Medical malpractice lawsuits hold health care providers accountable for professional negligence that results in injuries to patients. You may be able to sue any health care provider whose diagnosis and treatment of you fell below the professional standard of care. Health care providers include doctors, chiropractors, nurses, psychologists, physical therapists, pharmacists, hospitals, clinics, and laboratories. If you suffered injuries because of a professional breach of duty, you should call the experienced medical malpractice lawyers of Walton Law to help determine whether you have a viable claim.

Suing for Medical Malpractice Damages

Health care providers owe a duty to act within the professional standard of care when seeing a patient. The professional standard of care is often defined as the degree of learning and skill ordinarily possessed by practitioners of the medical profession in the same region under similar circumstances.

In order to establish a defendant’s liability in a medical malpractice lawsuit, our lawyers will need to establish: (1) the defendant owed you a professional duty of care, (2) the defendant breached the professional duty of care, (3) causation, and (4) actual damages. A health care provider might breach his or her professional duty of care in many different ways, including by making mistakes in taking a patient history, failing to conduct a differential diagnosis, failing to conduct property imaging and testing, failing to refer a patient to a specialist, or failure to communicate with a patient.

The standard of care against which a health care provider’s acts are to be measured is a matter peculiarly within the knowledge of experts and can typically only be proved by their testimony. Most people don’t have the requisite knowledge to determine whether a doctor’s conduct departed from the professional standard of care or what competent doctors would be expected to do under the circumstances. Additionally, the retained expert should be good at explaining technical matters to a jury, carry appropriate credentials, and have a strong reputation that can withstand scrutiny from the other side. The professional standard of care for a nurse working with the elderly in a nursing home, for instance, may be different than the standard of care that applies to ER nurses. As a result, it is critical to retain lawyers who understand which experts are appropriate for a case and can perform well on the stand to support a claim.

Available Damages

If you have suffered an injury as the result of medical malpractice you are entitled to full and fair compensation, typically in the form of economic damages, non-economic damages, or both. Economic damages include such things as:

  • Lost wages,
  • Medical bills,
  • Future care needs,
  • Home health care,
  • Physical and occupational therapy, and
  • Lost earning capacity.

A victim of medical malpractice may also seek an award of non-economic damages for pain and suffering, loss of consortium, disfigurement, and emotional distress. In some cases, these damages are capped based on where the health care provider is being sued. If a loved one dies as a result of medical malpractice, our attorneys may be able to seek wrongful death damages.

Consult a Seasoned Medical Malpractice Law Firm

After getting injured by a health care provider, you may be in pain and you may have additional medical bills, even as you need to take time off work to recover. It is crucial you have someone on your side, advocating for your best interests as a patient. For a free and confidential consultation with a trustworthy medical malpractice attorney, please call us directly at (866) 338-7079, or contact us online.