Medical malpractice is when a physician overlooks your symptoms or misdiagnoses them, there is excessive delay in providing care, and failure to provide the appropriate treatment.

In order for a medical malpractice suit to be proved certain things have to be established. There must be a physician-patient relationship and the physician must have agreed to take on the care of the patient. Dereliction of Duty has to be proved. This means that there could have been a delay in treatment or that the standard of treatment was not at an acceptable standard. Expert testimony would be required to prove this and often the need to obtain medical records. It would have to be proved, beyond doubt, that the physicians negligence led to injury, or that if the physician had acted differently he could have avoided causing injury. When claiming damages, these must be directly concerning the claimant, for instance loss of earnings or medical expenses. Some indirect claims can be made in respect of pain and suffering or emotional distress. Punitive damages are sometimes awarded in cases of reckless conduct.

Medical errors are the biggest cause of death in the US. Medical errors can occur anywhere within the healthcare network. It could be a misdiagnosis, giving the wrong drug to a patient, giving drugs that interact with another prescribed drug or even performing surgery in the wrong site. It could be something routine that can be classed as a medical error, for instance, a patient being given the wrong diet when the physician has put a patient on a restrictive diet such as no salt or sugar.

The United States has a very complex healthcare system and some believe that it is this that leads to medical errors. A recent study also revealed that there was often a communication problem between doctors and their patients and those patients did not have enough help to make informed decisions.

However, it would be wrong to knock the whole healthcare set up. We are all human beings and as such, we make mistakes. We must not lose sight of all the good that is done in healthcare. The important thing is to be open and informative when such errors occur. It is important to families to know what has happened when their loved one is a victim of an error, you can only forgive if you know the facts.