Your trust your doctor to do everything that he or she can to come up with the correct diagnosis. However, patients in New Mexico and across the country are increasingly filing lawsuits against their internists for not coming up with the correct diagnosis and other errors. Here’s why.
Why internists are vulnerable
An internist’s primary job is to diagnose and manage diseases. When they fail to do so, medical malpractice can occur. The most common misdiagnoses involve failure to correctly diagnose conditions like acute myocardial infarction and various types of cancers.
The second most common reason to file an injury lawsuit involves a breach of care due to other failures. These aren’t necessarily mistakes but are omissions, like failing to obtain consent or having equipment fail during a procedure. Other common reasons to institute a medical malpractice claim against an internist include:
- Harm caused by errors during a procedure
- Harm caused by subordinates such as nurses
- Failure to prescribe the correct medication or incorrect administration
For the last reason, failure to discover allergies to medication is the most common reason for malpractice. Less common reasons for lawsuits include failure to recognize complications from procedures, failure to perform medically indicted procedures and failure to do consultations in a timely manner.
Identifying medical malpractice
Properly identifying faulty medical care is essential to filing a successful medical malpractice lawsuit. Medical malpractice cases are complex and require due diligence and often significant amounts of research to determine whether some type of omission or negligent act occurred that caused harm.
Dissatisfaction with a medical provider or a failed medical procedure doesn’t necessarily constitute medical malpractice. You need to establish that your medical provider deviated from the standard course of care in order for you to receive compensation. Keeping clear and thorough records of medical care and results may help you prove your claim.
