What is Hospital Malpractice?
Thursday, March 31st, 2011Hospital malpractice occurs when the health care professionals and/or hospital staff fail to meet the needs of a patient. This failure is serious and can often result in a patient’s death. In some cases, the patient’s medical condition will worsen.
There are many types of hospital malpractice. Often, patients may not even realize they are victims of medical malpractice. It is therefore quite important for patients to understand the different types of hospital malpractice.
Misdiagnosis of an illness is one of the most common types of hospital malpractice. Patients can suffer greatly when their illness is not diagnosed correctly by a medical practitioner. For example, a doctor may fail to diagnose cancer within a patient, which constitutes a form of hospital malpractice. A patient’s stroke may not be identified correctly by a doctor, which also means that he or she will not be able to receive the required care. Misdiagnosis of diabetes is another dangerous type of hospital malpractice, since a person’s diet and intake of food varies greatly, depending on whether or not the person has diabetes.
Delayed diagnosis of an illness is another type of hospital malpractice. Delayed diagnosis can occur when a hospital fails to immediately recognize a coronary attack within a patient. A delay in cancer diagnosis is another common type of delayed diagnosis. Appendicitis is another illness which must be immediately recognized by hospitals, or else the results can truly be disastrous.
There are many surgical errors which can make up hospital malpractice. Sometimes, a surgeon will make an unnecessary laceration on a patient. This is one of the most dangerous types of surgical errors, since it can lead to great infection within a patient. A foreign object left inside the body of a patient is another type of hospital malpractice which may occur and harm a patient. When a surgeon fails to prepare anesthesia correctly, this is another form of malpractice.
Goldberg & Osborne, a personal injury law firm, has provided this article for informational purposes only, written by an independent author, has not reviewed or edited this article, and is not responsible for its content or accuracy.