What Constitutes Medical Malpractice?

Doctors are often seen as authority figures. After all, they spend the better part of a decade studying for their medical degrees and training in hospitals to hone their skills. If you show them your hand, they can tell you every bone, muscle, ligament, joint and nerve that comprise it. Since they specialize in the inner workings of the human body, they are experts at treating the various ailments that afflict it.

No matter how highly patients may think of them, doctors are still human and are not infallible. In fact, there are 15,000 to 19,000 cases of medical malpractice filed each year. However, if an injection feels slightly more painful than usual, that’s not necessarily grounds for a malpractice suit. Doctors can only be charged with malpractice if they were negligent of their duties, giving substandard treatment that harms, injures or causes death to patients.

In other words, deviation from the standard quality of care must first be established before the doctor can be held legally responsible for any harm caused to a patient. In such cases, a medical malpractice expert witness can study a plaintiff’s complaint to see if there is indeed professional negligence on the part of the doctor. Often, an expert witness’s opinion is necessary before a malpractice lawsuit can be filed.

3 Tips to Help a Lawyer Get a Medical Malpractice Expert Witness.

Like everyone, a medical expert witness - and a lawyer - has certain needs. An expert witness needs medical reports (i.e. X-rays, MRI’s) of lawyers’ clients. A lawyer needs to communicate with their experts, especially because they are “critical in understanding the finer points of a case and any items that the attorney should focus on”. Getting a good one out of many medical malpractice expert witnesses is not always easy. However, the above tips give some direction. If a lawyer needs an expert witness right away, he or she can narrow the search by contacting a professional such as Taylor Medical Consulting.

http://www.taylormedicalconsulting.com/3-tips-to-help-a-lawyer-get-a-medical-malpractice-expert-witness/

When Law and Medicine Meet

Different professions have different expertise but they don't always remain separate. When determining if a medical practitioner contributed to adverse effects on a patient's condition, the court has the final say. However, the basis of the court's decision is data often rife with complicated medical terminologies and conditions that are not easy to understand. Therefore, having a medical malpractice expert as a witness saves time and energy to understand what actually happened.

The medical expert can provide a testimony whether the doctor in question has followed the standard of care a normal, competent doctor would have observed. They can explain in layman’s terms how a process went wrong and how it affected the patient. If this is the case, the witness can then testify that the doctor’s error led to the current issue with the patient.

The opinion and insights of the expert witness will bear significant weight since they have a complete understanding of how efficient medical professionals should work. They also have an in-depth knowledge of how the body works and how diseases develop so they can explain how the doctor's conduct could have or have not led to further problems. By having experts in the medical field testify, the court can deliver justice for patients who were victimized by their incompetence. 

Why You Need to Hire a Competent Medical Malpractice Expert Witness

A medical malpractice lawsuit typically involves doctors, and in a few cases, other medical practitioners, such as nurses. As these cases involve scientific details a judge and jury may not be familiar with, the testimonies of medical expert witnesses is essential to shed light on the complicated terminologies of the case. What they say in court will serve as a strong evidence for the case. Both the plaintiff and the defendant can use medical expert witnesses' testimonies to present their argument. In a medical malpractice lawsuit, the expert witness is expected to answer the question of whether a medical practitioner followed the standard care expected for a certain situation. A qualified medical malpractice expert is then expected to give proof on the doctor’s failure to observe standard care and discuss how this lapse of judgment resulted to the patient's injury.

http://www.taylormedicalconsulting.com/why-you-need-to-hire-a-competent-medical-malpractice-expert-witness/