If your doctor or healthcare provider has made a mistake or caused you harm through the treatments you are receiving, you may be able to file a personal injury lawsuit for medical malpractice. In order to file a medical malpractice case in Southern Illinois, however, you need to be able to prove that your doctor did something wrong that he or she should be held liable for.
Southern Illinois Medical Malpractice Case
When Can You Sue Your Doctor?
Doctors are not expected to be perfect and medical treatments are not always foolproof. This means that you cannot necessarily sue your doctor every time something does not go your way.
However, doctors are expected to provide reasonable, professional care. The specifics of their obligation will vary depending upon exactly what type of care they are providing and what treatment they are offering. For example, a cardiologist who is providing you with care for your heart would expected to be better and more knowledgeable than a family care physician in providing care for your heart.
The key to determining whether you can sue your doctor, therefore, is whether your doctor fell short of the level of care that he was supposed to be providing to you. A professional negligence standard is used to make this determination. If an average reasonable doctor with your physician’s skill and background would have made the same mistake that your doctor did, then you cannot sue. However, if no reasonably competent physician with the same background and training would have made the mistake your doctor did, then you should be able to sue.
You will, however, also need to prove that your doctor’s mistake or error was a direct cause of some type of actual harm. In other words, whatever your doctor did must have made your health worse in some way that your doctor can compensate you for.
Types of Things You Can Sue a Doctor For
You can sue your doctor not just for wrongful or negligent acts, but also for omissions as well. For example, you can sue a doctor for:
- Failing to diagnose a medical condition correctly.
- Misdiagnosing you or missing symptoms.
- Misreading lab results or failing to order appropriate testing.
- Unreasonably delaying treatment in a way that worsens your medical condition.
- Making a mistake in the treatment being provided to you.
- Botching a surgery in some way, such as operating on the wrong body part or making a mistake during the procedure.
- Failing to check for drug interactions when prescribing you a medication or prescribing the wrong medication or the wrong dose.
- Failing to obtain informed consent before providing you with treatment.
In these and many other situations, doctors make mistakes that cause you to suffer ill effects to your health. You deserve to be compensated when a doctor hurts you, and an experienced Southern Illinois medical malpractice lawyer can help you to evaluate your situation and determine if you have a malpractice claim.
