Sometimes medical practitioners make mistakes when working with a patient. If you or a loved one has been the unwitting victim of medical malpractice on the part of a doctor, nurse, or another medical professional, a medical malpractice attorney can help you recover financial compensation for your damages. If you are located near Indianapolis, IN, you need the expert lawyers at Wegner & Associates.
Minimum Requirements for Medical Malpractice Suits
Medical malpractice suits are similar to personal injury suits, in that the plaintiff is seeking monetary compensation for physical, mental, and financial damages that they incurred because of the negligence of the defendant. In malpractice suits, the defendant is always a medical professional, but this isn’t the only thing that turns a personal injury suit into a medical malpractice suit.
In addition to the above conditions, the plaintiff and the defendant must have a doctor-patient relationship to make a legitimate medical malpractice claim. For example, you cannot sue a friend who happens to be a doctor for medical malpractice if you just asked them for advice as your friend.
Types of Medical Malpractice
When many people think of medical malpractice, they think of things like a surgeon leaving instruments inside a patient’s body or a nurse administering the wrong medication. While these things definitely count as malpractice, many more forms of action and inaction on the part of medical professionals are examples of medical malpractice. To name a few:
- Failure to diagnose or catastrophic misdiagnosis of a disease
- Initiating unnecessary surgeries, invasive procedures, and treatments
- Failure to provide the necessary information for informed consent
- Ignoring patient history or legitimate test results
Note that this list is not comprehensive, and medical professionals can be guilty of malpractice in countless other ways.
Medical malpractice has a short statute of limitations, so if you think you’ve been a victim of malpractice, do not hesitate to reach out to one of our expert attorneys. Speak to one of the expert lawyers at Wegner & Associates today and receive a free consultation by calling us at 317-576-0066.