Is It a Mistake or Malpractice?
You go to the dentist for a tooth extraction, and the dentist removes a tooth from the right side of your mouth instead of the left side. Someone screwed up, right? That much is obvious. What’s harder is determining if you have a medical malpractice case, or if the courts will regard it is as a simple mistake that, while regrettable, doesn’t entitle you to any sort of damages.
Medical malpractice is an incredibly complicated area of the law. It’s easy to imagine yourself sweeping into court with a lawyer and being awarded thousands of dollars by a sympathetic jury. The reality isn’t so simple.
Pain and suffering
The medical profession has these things known as “unfavorable outcomes.” If you don’t get enough anesthesia before surgery and wake up in the middle of it, that’s certainly not a good outcome. It may not be considered “unfavorable,” however. To the patient who woke up to find him or herself still on the operating table, it obviously isn’t favorable, but if he or she was only shaken up emotionally, it may not be enough to consider filing suit. A lot of civil suits are expensive to file, but medical malpractice suits are especially so. According to the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys, the high price tag is due in part to how much it costs to pay all those medical experts to show up and testify.
That being said, you shouldn’t decide not to pursue a case without first consulting with a medical malpractice attorney in your area. Many law firms will offer free consultations that can provide you with a clear path forward if there is one. If there’s not a way forward, an honest, ethical attorney won’t bother wasting any more of your time. It’s cruel to give people false hope if there isn’t any, and if you don’t have a medical malpractice suit, it’s best to find other ways to move forward. That may involve a few sessions with a qualified therapist.
Speaking of moving forward, a lot of people hear about damages for “pain and suffering,” but not a lot of people understand what that means, or just how hard it can be to be awarded money for pain and suffering. You’ll have actual damages from, for instance, lost wages from days when you couldn’t work. Aside from that, you can’t just go to court and say, “I was hurt by this so I deserve more money.” There has to be a lot more evidence than that. In most cases, a jury can’t just throw pain and suffering money at a plaintiff because the plaintiff feels it. Some states are fairly friendly venues for medical malpractice claims, while other states have decided (rightly or wrongly) to really clamp down on the circumstances in which medical professionals can be held liable.
At the end of the day, you shouldn’t spend a lot of time sitting around and worrying that something bad might happen. If you have an upcoming appointment with a periodontist, don’t cancel it based on the incredibly low chance that something will go wrong. The vast majority of health professionals do their jobs every day without any problems. If there is a problem, it’s probably going to be something minor that can be corrected without too much hassle. If it’s not, you can deal with the situation as it unfolds.
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- 9 Steps to Take if You Have a Case for Medical Malpractice
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- 6 Consequences of Suffering a Catastrophic Injury
- Medical History and Dental Care: Why Your Dentist Needs to Know
