Medical Malpractice and Legal Representation in the US
By Kristina Madrazo
Not everyone has a case to be represented in court, but everyone has a visit to the doctor. Medical malpractice, however, has become prevalent in the US, with negligence by care providers resulting in the country’s third leading cause of death, according to a Johns Hopkins study.
Medical malpractice happens when medical practitioners fail to provide appropriate and timely treatment to a patient, resulting in serious injuries or even death. In proving medical negligence, four essential elements need to be established: duty, breach, injury, and proximate causation. The first two elements indicate that a doctor-patient relationship naturally brings forth a duty and legal obligation. As attributed in the oath of ethics taken by physicians, “first, do no harm.” Physicians have the duty to diagnose and care for their patients, and its non-observance or negligence causes a breach. The third and fourth elements mean that the injury or death was the direct result of the physician’s duty; that the proximate cause of this injury was the doctor’s breach of duty to care for the patient.
Given that medical malpractice is one of the leading causes of death in the US, surpassed only by cancer and cardiac heart diseases, it’s alarming that lawsuits filed against it are reportedly low when the fatalities linked to medical negligence reach over 200,000. The common types of claims include misdiagnoses, medical prescription errors, surgical errors, and failure to treat patients (Thorsnes Bartolotta McGuire, Medical Malpractice Statistics, 2023).
When mistakes occur in medical consultations and even surgeries, it’s crucial to act immediately before healthcare providers attempt a cover-up. As a result of these cases, the US medical malpractice system has undergone significant reforms in response to insurance cases, claim payouts, and inefficiencies in the litigation processes—including the Tort reform, COVID-19 liability shields, and the Assembly Bill 35 or AB 35.