The trust we have in our doctors is invaluable though taken for granted. Most of the world’s population is aware of the decades of training and experience that a doctor undergoes to become proficient in his or her profession. Also, the vast majority of doctor visits have ended in no harm to us so we as a collective have come to the consensus that it is impossible for a doctor to harm us in turn.
However, the unfortunate truth is that just because most doctor visits result in zero harm it doesn’t mean that they aren’t capable of harming us at all. Every now and then, there are instances in which a doctor does perform a treatment that adversely affects a person’s health, resulting in short or long-term ill effects. This is called medical malpractice, any event in which a doctor knowingly or unknowingly harms a patient during the course of treatment. Below you’ll see the basic information regarding a medical malpractice case:
Medical Affidavit: We, the general public, who are not medical professionals are capable of telling when something is wrong, but it takes a medical professional to identify exactly what it is. That said, we can’t exactly be trusted ourselves to be able to identify exactly our own problems in court, so when it comes to getting proof of our medical problem in a medical malpractice case you need an affidavit of merit which is essentially the opinion of an expert medical witness who can attest that what the defendant had done was wrong and against the standards of the medical field.
Compensation: Damages in medical malpractice are one of the most lucrative in the field of personal injury law. Since medical harm can become long-term or permanent, compensation must be issued accordingly to alleviate and help the victim. There are of course the economic damages that are relative to wages that have been lost and are expected to be lost. Then there are non-economic damages; the caps for which are different with every state, for instance, Nevada’s cap is $350,000. These are damages that can’t be calculated but need to be argued for.
Statute of Limitations: This is basically a fancy term regarding the time limit that you are allowed to file a claim. The time limit is relative to the estimated date of the incident. Like the compensation, the statute of limitations is different with every state and in the case of medical malpractice, can be different with injury, illness, harmful treatment, etc. inflicted.
Any victim who has faced a medical malpractice should contact a medical malpractice lawyer from Needle & Ellenberg legal assistance.