Injured? Get Legal Help From Cleveland Medical Malpractice Attorney May 31, 2012.
Medical malpractice is unfortunately all too common today. Health care is such a broad industry – with highly specialized medical professionals performing all types of complex surgeries, prescribing medications to patients and offering their advice – and therefore it is inevitable that something will go wrong with some of these professionals.
While it is in no way accepted as the norm, any experienced Cleveland medical malpractice attorney will tell you that it’s a very real thing and it has very real consequences for medical professionals who make errors.
Because of this, most health care professionals today have medical malpractice insurance and keep medical malpractice lawyers on retainer. These medical professionals might never need these services, but they are keeping themselves covered in case something does happen – or in case a patient tries to sue them, even if there was no wrongdoing that occurred.
For patients, medical malpractice should not be taken lightly. If a health care professional has acted in an unprofessional manner, botched a surgery or done something inappropriate with a patient, then that patient has a right – and a responsibility – to contact a Cleveland medical malpractice attorney right away to get things settled.
This can involve filing a claim against any of the following parties:
- doctor;
- surgeon;
- nurse;
- dentist;
- psychiatrist;
- hospital;
- diagnostic lab; or
- clinic.
For injured patients, it is important to hire a medical malpractice attorney for several reasons. For one, the plaintiff must prove that the medical professional acted in an unprofessional manner, whether he or she:
- did not diagnose a disease properly;
- caused an injury; or
- did not follow the standard medical procedures.
This can be quite difficult for patients to prove on their own. By hiring an attorney, they have someone on their side who can help them get the right questions answered, the right paperwork filled out and the right evidence to build a solid case. You only get one chance to do it right.
It also is important to hire a lawyer because this professional knows much more about the process than patients themselves do. There are some complicated procedures and some skill sets that are required in order to fight a successful case – including in the world of medical malpractice law. This makes it essential to hire a lawyer, who can make the process as easy as possible.
The damages that plaintiffs can fight for in a medical malpractice case include any damages that might have occurred to the plaintiff as a direct result of the medical professionals’ behavior. This can include physical damage, as well as emotional and psychological damage.
If, for instance, a doctor told a patient that he or she had cancer when this patient actually did not, and the patient started to go through the painful process of chemotherapy and radiation – only to find out that there was no cancer to begin with – then the patient can sue for damages that were both physical and psychological in nature.
