Medical Malpractice

When I go to trial, the people I represent count on twelve strangers on a jury to see the truth, and to speak for their community--to say "this is wrong" and "we won't tolerate it"

The most basic duty that any doctor has is to listen and pay attention to you.  If they don't listen, and don't take the time to perform a thorough examination, they will never get the information they need to actually help you.  A doctor who doesn't listen to your symptoms of chest pain isn't going to try to find out what is causing your chest pain.  A doctor who doesn't examine your child carefully is going to miss symptoms of meningitis.  A nurse who rushes through getting your information in an emergency department isn't going to write down what needs to go into your records.  And then

Deciding to File Suit

"Consent Forms" and Patient's Rights

Those of you who have been to a hospital lately have most likely signed a “consent” form, although you probably did not read it closely and it was presented to you with a bunch of other papers to sign by some clerk or possibly a nurse who was in a hurry.

Hysterectomy--the surgical removal of a woman's uterus- is one of the most common surgeries in the world.  Approximately 600,000 hysterectomies are performed annually in the United States, and approximately 20 million American women have had a hysterectomy. By the age of 60, more than one-third of all women have had a hysterectomy.

In analyzing whether you have a good medical malpractice case, we’ll look at three issues:

1. Did the Doctor Make an Inexcusable Mistake?

It is not enough in a medical malpractice case to prove that a doctor made a mistake. Some mistakes are excusable and are not medical malpractice.

For example, during a surgery, a doctor may accidentally cut something he didn’t intend to cut. This is probably medical malpractice, but in some cases may be an excusable mistake, and therefore not medical malpractice.

Wernicke’s Encephalopathy Misdiagnosis Causes Severe Injuries and Death

One of the most consistent goals of so-called “tort reform” is to put an upper limit on the amount that a defendant has to pay for the damage he causes in injury suits.  For example, in Texas, where there are such limits, a doctor can kill a child or a housewife or a grandfather through malpractice and only have to pay a maximum of $250,000 for doing so—no matter how bad the negligence.  That’s it:  the value placed on human life is $250,000.

In just the last couple of decades, there have been dramatic improvements in methods of treating cancer and diagnosing cancer.  While cancer misdiagnosis cases are particularly tragic, our team has been handling more and more misdiagnosis cases involving not only cancer but other diseases.

Diseases like meningitis, and injuries like bleeding in the brain from an accident or a stroke, can now be diagnosed and cured with speed and precision that could not have been imagined even a few years ago.

Most lawsuits settle before they go to trial.   

Usually money changes hands, but often not:  sometimes cases settle for an apology, an agreement to change the terms of a contract, or even an agreement to enter into another contract which is lucrative to both sides.

So what about the cases that end up in court?  What makes cases go to trial instead of settling?  There are a lot of reasons for that, but they can be distilled into three general categories.