When you hear about a medical malpractice lawsuit, you might think that the person being sued is a doctor. However, someone other than a doctor can have a lawsuit filed against them if they harmed the patient due to negligence. If you’ve suffered due to a medical professional’s negligence or recklessness, you may want to consider hiring a personal injury lawyer.
Who Can Be Sued?
If your personal injury lawyer can determine they caused your medical injury due to negligence, most healthcare professionals can face a lawsuit.
Doctors
Medical malpractice cases more commonly focus on doctors. You can file a malpractice claim or lawsuit if you have suffered a measurable amount of harm from your doctor’s negligence.
For example, you can file a lawsuit and request damages if your doctor fails to diagnose a medical condition that another qualified doctor could have identified.
Hospitals
A hospital can be held responsible if the hospital employee hurts a patient by acting negligently. This is known as respondeat superior. Legal liability can be created for the hospital by any of its nurses or medical technicians. By allowing any incompetent person to have staff privileges, a hospital can be liable for its actions.
However, your claim can be determined to be for ordinary negligence and not medical malpractice if you suffer an injury from negligence that isn’t medical. For example, getting food poisoning from the cafeteria in the hospital might give you a claim for negligence but not a claim for medical malpractice. A personal injury lawyer will help you differentiate between the two.
If I Decide To Sue, How Do I Prove My Case?
You must first establish that you were a patient of the doctor that caused the harm, or a patient at the hospital where you were harmed for a medical malpractice case. Also, you have to show that they violated the standard of care and that violation caused you to experience a measurable amount of harm.
If you believe that you or someone you care about may have been the victim of medical malpractice, you need to hire a personal injury lawyer to help you with your case.
The law office of Robert J. DeBry & Associates has professionals that can help.