Patients instill a lot of trust in their physicians, sharing confidential information with them with the view of getting the best therapeutic treatment. Nevertheless, situations may occur in which a patient believes they have been subject to ill-treatment within the range of the doctor-patient relationship. In such instances, the patient can file a lawsuit against the doctor with the help of a personal injury lawyer. Here are various scenarios that may culminate in legal claims against health practitioners.
Medical malpractice
This is arguably the most common lawsuit filed against health care practitioners. A medical malpractice lawsuit arises when a general practitioner fails to treat the patient as per the accepted therapeutic standard of care which results in the patient suffering injury or harm. The therapeutic standard of care is the kind of care that another doctor in the same community practicing in the same medical field would have offered within similar circumstances.
More often than not, medical malpractice is a result of misdiagnosis. This is based on the principle that the patient unnecessarily suffered for a prolonged duration because of the physician's failure to correctly run or evaluate tests that ought to have reasonably alerted him or her of the probable diagnosis. Examples of other medical malpractice cases included failure to provide suitable treatment, misdiagnosing a health condition, causing an illogical delay in tackling a diagnosed ailment and carrying out a surgical procedure on a wrong person.
Assault
The tort of assault is based on the fact an individual says or suggests something that he or she will have some kind of offensive or harmful contact with another party and the threatened party suffers reasonable anxiety of this contact happening. This tort doesn't require the actual occurrence of the contact but simply needs the victim to experience the nervousness that it might. From a medical perspective, this may happen if a physician warns to take medical action contrary to the will of the patient.
Battery
Battery arises when an individual purposefully touches or makes unsolicited physical contact with another individual in an offensive or harmful manner. When patients are either physically or sexually assaulted by their physicians, then battery may come into effect. Additionally, this may arise when the physician does anything to the patient with no consent.
In conclusion, the above-mentioned are the three common bases for filing a lawsuit against your physician with the help of a personal injury lawyer from a firm like Nigams Legal.
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