6 Common Medical Malpractice Causes

(Photo : 6 Common Medical Malpractice Causes)

You might think of doctors as being very competent people. They certainly seem official, like they know their business. You know they went to medical school, so they must be intelligent.

However, doctors are not infallible. They're human, and they do make mistakes. The problem is, when a doctor makes a mistake, it could prove harmful or fatal.

A doctor's mistake could cost you your life or affect its quality quite a bit. When that happens, either you or your family can often file a medical malpractice suit.

It's not a bad idea to know what causes medical malpractice, so let's look at some common reasons right now.

Carelessness

Medical malpractice happens more than you might think. It results in almost 100,000 fatalities each year, which is a little bit terrifying if you think about it.

You wouldn't think a doctor would ever be careless. Their job is too vital. Still, it does happen.

That carelessness might take the following forms:

• A doctor might misread a chart

• A surgeon or orderly could administer the wrong medication

If that happens, there could be dire results. You might get the wrong surgery, or you could die because of the doctor administering the wrong medication. If that happens, it's your family who will have to bring the medical malpractice suit, if they can prove what occurred.

Fatigue

A doctor's job is not an easy one. They often have to work for many hours at a time, and during the Covid-19 pandemic, they have more on their plates than usual.

Because of this, you could have doctors:

• Awake for days at a time

• Going on caffeine mega-doses

The human body needs sleep, and even the most skillful doctor can make a mistake if they've been awake for thirty-some hours. This is a time when they can easily misread a chart or misinterpret symptoms.

You don't want to penalize an overworked doctor who made a mistake, but if they harmed you or a family member, you're still within your rights to demand recompense.

Language Barriers

In this country, you also have people who speak many different languages. Some are foreign nationals who live here now, and they don't speak English very well, or at all. Others grew up in the US, but their parents spoke a different language at home.

Ideally, if a patient goes to see a doctor and speaks a different language from them, the doctor will either find someone who speaks that language who can translate, or they can direct the individual to a doctor or hospital where the staff can understand them.

However, maybe the doctor feels like they speak enough of that language, so they understand what the person says. Maybe they speak a little broken Spanish, or whatever other language it is, and they trust their comprehension enough to get by.

However, every language is subtle, and a doctor might not quite understand what a person is trying to tell them about their symptoms or condition. The doctor might get the wrong idea and make an improper diagnosis.

If so, they could prescribe the wrong medication, schedule the patient for unneeded surgery, etc.

Biases

You'd also hope that a doctor will treat every patient equally, and they hold no biases when they examine someone. Once again, though, every doctor is human, and they may have their beliefs about particular individuals or groups.

Say that an African-American woman goes to see a doctor and says she has abdominal pain. The doctor feels like this individual is trying to get some pain pills. The opioid epidemic colors this doctor's opinion.

The doctor downplays the pain and only gives the woman a cursory examination. They send the woman on her way and tell her to use over-the-counter pain meds. The woman soon dies from appendicitis.

It's a horrific thought, but unfortunately, this sort of thing happens more often than you might think. Personal doctor bias sometimes does play a part in patient treatment, which can lead to malpractice cases.

Inexperience

You also might have a doctor who is new on the job. They're fresh out of med school, and one of their first patients presents with some very unusual symptoms.

You'd hope that a doctor who feels out of their depth will consult a colleague. They can even bring in a whole team if they're not sure what's wrong.

However, the new doctor might not want to admit that they don't know what's happening with this patient. Because of this, they might come up with a false conclusion.

The patient could become very ill or die. The doctor failed to seek help, so they didn't catch the real condition in time. That's certainly going to be medical malpractice lawsuit grounds.

Intentional Negligence

You even might have a doctor who feels a certain way about a person or group of people, and they decide to withhold the proper treatment because of some misguided vendetta. This is similar to cultural bias but worse.

Doctors must take the Hypocritic Oath, saying that they will first do no harm. Beyond that, though, they're supposed to help a patient who needs it, regardless of things like gender, religion, sexuality, political affiliation, etc.

You'd hope that a doctor will help an individual in need regardless of how they feel about them. If they fail to do that, and the person or their family can prove that's why they got substandard care, they can bring a medical malpractice lawsuit against that doctor.

Since medical malpractice happens so often, you should select your doctor and even your hospital very carefully. If you're having an emergency, you might not have a chance to do that. If so, you can try to bring a friend or family member along to monitor what happens.

They might need to refer back to your care later if the doctor or hospital treats you poorly. Their memory of what happened could directly influence a medical malpractice lawsuit if you need to bring one later.