What Are the Most Common Causes of Medical Malpractice?

 Posted on December 03, 2024 in Medical Malpractice

Medical errors are the third-leading cause of death across the United States, after heart disease and cancer. While one Johns Hopkins study claims at least 250,000 people die in the U.S. every year from medical errors, others believe the number to be much higher—as high as 440,000. Many of these medical errors rise to the level of medical malpractice. There are four legal elements that must be proven in a medical malpractice claim.

The medical professional must have owed a duty of care to the patient and must have breached that duty of care. This breach of duty of care must have caused injuries, and those injuries must have corresponding damages. Medical malpractice claims also ask the question, "Would a similarly trained medical professional, given the same set of circumstances, have made a different choice?" If the answer to that question is "yes," then medical malpractice may have occurred.  

Once it is established that medical malpractice did occur, the cause of the medical malpractice comes into play. There are some types of medical malpractice that are more common than others. If you are the victim of medical malpractice, you could benefit from having an experienced Chicago, IL medical malpractice attorney from Winters Salzetta O'Brien & Richardson, LLC as a strong advocate in your corner. In the state of Illinois, you have two years from the time the injury occurs – or from when you reasonably should have known it occurred – to file a medical malpractice claim.  

Misdiagnosis and Delayed Diagnoses Are the Most Common Reasons for Medical Malpractice Claims

Diagnostic errors can create an environment where disease can grow and advance, perhaps becoming much more difficult – if not impossible – to contain. Between 2013 and 2017, 1,800 closed medical malpractice claims were reviewed. Failure to diagnose or misdiagnosis accounted for 68 percent of the total number of medical malpractice claims, and in almost half of those diagnosis-related cases, the patient died.

A medical professional may fail to diagnose the true reason the patient is feeling unwell, perhaps thinking a patient has something common or simple instead of something more serious. If tests are not ordered to confirm the medical professional’s belief that nothing serious is wrong, a disease like cancer or heart disease can grow and worsen, even resulting in the death of the patient.

Similarly, a doctor may believe a patient has a serious disease, so he or she might schedule surgery or a treatment that actually harms the patient without that disease. For example, the primary symptoms of a heart attack—shortness of breath, chest pain, and nausea—could also be symptoms of a lingering chest cold. Surgery for a heart procedure might be scheduled without additional tests. That surgery could be entirely unnecessary, causing some type of injury or harm to the patient.

Although medical misdiagnosis and failure to diagnose are the most common reasons for a medical malpractice claim, some other common causes of medical malpractice claims include:

• A hospital-acquired infection can cause serious illness or even death. Central line-associated bloodstream infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, and catheter-associated urinary tract infections are the most common types of hospital-acquired infections.
•  Childbirth injuries to the mother or child may occur when there is insufficient monitoring of the mother, fetus, or newborn.
• Medication errors cause at least one death every day in the United States, injuring about 1.3 million people each year.
• General surgeons are the physicians named most frequently in medical malpractice claims. This can be the result of operating on the wrong body part, accidentally puncturing a neighboring organ, or leaving a sponge or instrument in the body. Anesthesiologists are included in surgical errors, as even the smallest miscalculation in anesthesia can lead to brain damage, disability, or death.

Contact a Chicago, IL Medical Malpractice Lawyer

If you or a loved one are the victim of medical malpractice, it is important that you contact an experienced Chicago, IL medical malpractice attorney from Winters Salzetta O'Brien & Richardson, LLC as quickly as possible. Our firm has handled many failure-to-diagnose cases, winning substantial settlements for our clients in these and all types of medical malpractice claims, including birth injury claims. Call 312-236-6324 to schedule your free consultation.