The Many Forms Medical Malpractice Can Take In Burien, Washington
We often associate medical malpractice with horrible surgery aftermaths, but as this Burien, Washington, personal injury lawyer explains, there are many other forms it can take!
Medical Malpractice is a term you have hopefully only ever heard of from medical or legal dramas. There, it is presented as a threat looming over a surgeon’s career or the dramatic result of a surgery gone wrong. But while medical malpractice incidents can and do happen in surgeries across the country, they are hardly limited to emergency rooms or surgical wards; in fact, they can even happen outside hospitals.
In Burien, Seattle, and throughout Washington state, attorney Matthew Hale has built a career on helping medical malpractice victims and other personal injury claimants navigate the treacherous waters of insurance claims and lawsuits required to get compensation for the things that have been done to them.
But that process often starts with helping injury victims even realize they have grounds for a claim. This is particularly difficult in medical malpractice claims, as you might not even realize that you have the grounds to make a claim, and sue them in court if they refuse to pay for what was done to you.
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Who Can Be Liable For Medical Malpractice In Burien, Washington
The truth is that anyone who practices medicine, provides medical care, or almost anyone who works in the healthcare industry can be held responsible if their negligence causes you harm. Sometimes it will not even be the individual, but the institution itself that should be held accountable for the consequences of their negligence.
So while surgeons and hospitals like St Anne in Burien can be guilty of medical malpractice, they are far from the only ones. In addition to those stereotypical examples we see in medical and legal dramas, all of the following can be guilty of medical malpractice:
- Other Doctors, including everyone from general practitioners to specialists;
- Nurses and other medical staff,
- Dentists, orthodontists, and hygienists;
- Nursing homes or long-term care facilities;
- Even physical therapists and pharmacists.
Indeed, if any medical professional has caused harm to someone under their care as a result of criminal, incompetent, or other negligent behavior, that person can make a medical malpractice claim with the help of a lawyer. If medical negligence results in death, then the estate and relatives can make that claim.
In either case, the claim serves to deter such negligent behavior, punish those responsible, and obtain both a measure of justice and financial compensation for the harm you or your loved one has endured.
Examples Of Different Types Of Medical Malpractice Negligence
While you can probably imagine the backlash if a surgeon at St Anne Hospital left a sponge or implement in their patient and sewed them back up with it still inside, medical malpractice incidents can take other, much more commonplace, forms.
- Misdiagnosis Or Failure To Properly Diagnose A Problem
Most of us have had the displeasure of not being believed by a doctor, or having one diagnose a condition as one disease when another was responsible. Most of the time, such errors are minor and even understandable, but sometimes they can be the result of negligence and have disastrous consequences.
When an x-ray technician swaps a woman’s mammogram results with anothers and her breast cancer goes undetected or when a doctor dismisses the chest pains of an overweight man as hearburn who then dies of a heart attack, or any other situation in which a mistake or incorrect diagnosis results in harm, the victim has the right to demand that they pay for that harm with a medical malpractice claim.
- Nursing Home Injuries And Elder Care
One field in which medical malpractice all too often goes ignored is elder care. Nursing homes are full of vulnerable patients, and staff are often overworked and underpaid. Neglect, medication mistakes, falls, and more can result in severe injuries or even deaths when nurses and other staff are careless or negligent.
If an elder in your life has taken a sudden and unexpected turn for the worse, or if the staff whose care they are under are refusing to explain or provide accurate records of care and treatments, they may be hiding medical negligence, and you should consider contacting a medical malpractice lawyer like Matthew Hale in Burien.
- Birth Injuries And Complications
Childbirth is always a dangerous time, both for the mother and child. While there are inherent risks, mistakes and negligence can have disastrous consequences on both lives. Anything from post-pregnancy infections to birth complications from a failure to diagnose a condition or injuries during the birth itself can affect your life, or the rest of your child’s.
These are particularly painful and emotional situations, so it is important to work with an empathetic and experienced medical malpractice lawyer. You need someone who will take your situation seriously, with the knowledge and perspective required to hold those responsible accountable.
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Injured By A Medical Professional In Burien? Call Us Today
Whether your injury or the death of a loved one in your life matches up perfectly with one of the examples above, or is completely unrelated, you deserve to know what happened and who was responsible. If it turns out the harm was caused by any of the medical professionals listed above, or any other, we can help you obtain justice and compensation.
From his office in Burien, medical malpractice lawyer Matthew Hale has helped countless victims seek and obtain both, and will proudly do the same for you.
Whether you have just been injured, only recently discovered the harm caused, or have been struggling with insurance companies already to get your losses covered, we hope you will give us a call at (206) 206-0213 or reach out online so that we can help and help make Burien safer for everyone in the process.
