Cancer treatment generally includes radiation treatment or chemotherapy treatment, and these two treatments are destructive to the human body. The treatment can be as awful as cancer itself. Often, there are unpleasant side effects, such as nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite are common. If not done right, chemotherapy and radiation treatment can lead to related illnesses. Medical negligence can lead to more injury and suffering. This is especially traumatic for cancer patients who are trusting their physicians to do the right things. If you believe that healthcare professionals have done something wrong that led to a related illness, you may be able to pursue a medical malpractice lawsuit. A medical malpractice lawsuit is a form of tort lawsuits or a personal injury lawsuit that patients use to win damages from healthcare providers who have harmed them.
Proving a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit
Proving a medical malpractice lawsuit is always a challenge, as certain elements must exist. You must be able to actually prove negligent cancer treatment. It must be established that the treating health care provider acted below the standard of care that a reasonable physician would have done in treating your cancer. If the lawsuit involves a hospital, it may be that the hospital wasn’t careful enough in hiring medical technicians who administered the complex chemical mixture in chemotherapy or radiation.
In addition, it must be established that your injury was a proximate result of the healthcare providers action or inaction. You would have to prove that injury from radiation wasn’t just a normal side effect or something went awry in the course of your chemotherapy treatment. The bottom line is that the injury must have been due to the breach of care or negligence by the healthcare provider.
Common Areas of Medical Malpractice for Cancer Treatment
Other common areas of medical malpractice regarding cancer treatment include failure to diagnose and delay or failure to provide appropriate treatment. Reasons that cause doctors to fail to diagnose or misdiagnose include misdiagnosing a tumor as benign, failure to order appropriate tests, misinterpreting test results, failure to perform regular screenings and failure to attend to a patient’s complaints. The most commonly misdiagnosed cancers are colon cancer and breast cancer.
Failure to provide timely and appropriate medical treatment can occur in cancer treatment. There may be a miscommunication between the medical team. If treatment does not begin in a timely fashion, it can be very detrimental to the patient. Patients may receive too much or too little of a particular drug. If surgery is needed, there may be errors in the surgery itself or with the anesthesia.
Consulting a Medical Malpractice Attorney and Medical Expert
Proving medical malpractice is always a challenge. Most juries do not know the medical terminology or what a reasonable medical professional would do. A great deal of medical evidence needs to be collected. It’s wise to hire an experienced medical malpractice attorney and an experienced medical expert. Most states require the use of a medical expert to testify in court on your behalf. Your attorney and a medical expert will help you build your case to successfully win a medical malpractice lawsuit.
“Dr. Edward Mallory is a residency-trained, board-certified emergency medicine physician and medical expert witness. Although he is a practicing doctor in several hospitals, the primary function of his medical expert witness business is to provide his expertise in the courtroom in order to support his clients’ testimonies. He is hired by people who believe they have been a victim of medical malpractice. He gives written or oral testimonies and “expert opinions” and his interpretation or medical record review, which is crucial in cases of the law involving medicine.” Learn more about him at https://emergencyexpertforyou.com/.
Some people are reluctant to believe that a medical healthcare professional can cause them greater harm than good, but it happens every day. Only a small number of people take action when a medical malpractice does occur. Don’t be one of those. Careless healthcare professional should be held legally accountable and can with a medical malpractice lawsuit.
