We place trust in our medical professionals to adhere to a standard of care. When an oversight, mistake, omission, or other act of negligence causes harm, the doctor has failed to maintain this standard of care and has committed medical malpractice. If this medical malpractice results in the death of a family member, then you have the right to seek compensation with a wrongful death lawsuit. While no amount of monetary compensation will replace the person lost, his or her death will have financial consequences and cause emotional suffering.
Examples of medical negligence include:
- Surgical errors – While there is an inherent risk to surgery, mistakes resulting in the death of the patient are inexcusable. These mistakes include anesthesia errors, unnecessary surgery, drug reactions, infections caused by improper technique, injury to other internal organs, and surgery to the wrong organ or part of the body.
- Cancer treatment errors – A misdiagnosis, a failure to diagnose the cancer early enough, using the wrong treatment, or a lab mistake that gives an erroneous test result can delay or prevent effective treatment of a cancer before it spreads or becomes aggressive.
- Illness treatment errors – These types of mistakes are similar in nature to the cancer treatment errors discussed above. They may cause treatable illnesses to spiral out of control, leading to the death of the patient.
- Emergency room errors – Inadequate staffing, records problems, delayed treatment, nursing mistakes, misdiagnosis, and poor communication among staff workers are some of the ways that the system can fail the patient.
- Nursing home negligence – Mistakes due to understaffing and inexperience, or abuse and neglect can have fatal consequences to the residents.
A wrongful death caused by medical malpractice is especially tragic because a trusted medical professional betrayed your trust that he or she would adhere to an acceptable standard of care. If you suspect that a doctor, nurse, or other healthcare professional committed a negligent act that led to the death of a family member, contact us to schedule a free consultation.