Our attorneys handle a wide-variety of cases where our clients are injured as a result of negligence on the part of doctors, nurses, and other hospital personnel. There are numerous types of malpractice which result in a numerous types of injuries, including birth injuries, brain injuries, and paralysis, among others. We have included information below which is designed to offer those who have been injured as a result of medical malpractice more information on the types of medical malpractice we handle and types of injuries often associated with those accidents.

Please feel free to browse the various topics which are offered for informational purposes only. If you or a loved one have been injured as a result of medical malpractice, and you are looking for legal representation, you are encouraged to contact our attorneys for a free, no hassle, no risk consultation.

Anesthesia has been a revolutionary force in modern medicine.  Less than 100 years ago, doctors were performing surgeries and amputations with little more than rubbing alcohol applied to the site.  Though anesthesia has many benefits, there are also severe dangers associated with anesthesia.  This is why modern medical practice dictates that only trained specialists be allowed to administer and monitor anesthesia to patients.  Unfortunately, anesthesia complications remain one of the most common causes of medical malpractice injuries.

There are a multitude of factors which could lead to an anesthesia injury.  Some of the errors which anesthesiologists make include:

• Failure to properly calculate the dosage
• Failure to administer the proper dosage (too much / too little)
• Failure to recognize concurrent adverse health events which should be addressed before beginning anesthesia
• Failure to properly instruct the patient on proper surgery preparation
• Failure to properly place the oxygen tube (“swan”)
• Failure to properly oxygenate the patient
• Failure to properly monitor the patient
• Failure to recognize that patient medication will negatively interact with the anesthesia
• Failure to recognize patient’s allergies will negatively interact with the anesthesia
• Defective tools, procedures, or devices used in the administration of anesthesia
• Failure to have appropriate guidelines for the administration of anesthesia and the monitoring of patients under anesthetic

Erb's Palsy - Ask any parent, and they will tell you that the birth of their child or children often represented one of the highlight’s of their lives.  There is little that can compare to the joy they experience as they finally meet their baby, which in most cases, they have been waiting almost 10 months to meet.  For most parents, the delivery is routine, the baby is observed for a short period of time while the mother recovers, and in a couple of days, both mother and child are healthy, and headed home.  Some parents, however, are not as fortunate.  And in many cases, a bad result is no one’s fault.  Often times, parents can do everything right, and so can their health providers, and even though everything appears fine up to the delivery date, for unexplainable reasons, something went wrong.

What can be even more devastating for parents, however, is when they do everything right, but the physicians, nurses, and other hospital staff that they entrust with their child’s wellbeing, commits an act of malpractice that results in serious and irreparable harm to the child.

Erb’s Palsy is one of the types of devastating, and debilitating, injuries which newborns suffer as a result of medical malpractice.  Also known as Erb-Duchenne Palsy, Erb’s Palsy is typically diagnosed as a paralysis of an arm which is caused by trauma or injury to the nerves which control the arm.  The typical trauma to the upper nerves of the arm which causes this injury is the severing of the upper truck at C5-C6.  These nerves are part of a grouping of nerves called the brachial plexus.  The brachial plexus make up the ventral rami of the spinal nerves found at C5-C8, and T-1.  A similar type of injury which can result from damage to the brachial plexus is called Klumpke’s Palsy.

Birth injury lawsuits refer to a class of legal claims that result when a newborn, or fetus, is injured prior to birth, or in the process of giving birth.  Birth injuries caused by negligence are usually the result of Medical Malpractice, or the mother’s use of a defective drug, or drug which may be harmful to the fetus, but the mother was never warned of the dangers.

Surgical Complications - Surgery has transformed modern medicine, and has been a leading type of medical intervention in the last 30 years.  Numerous techniques have been introduced which make the surgical process more safe, including the use of positioning technology, and nanotechnology.  The progression of surgical intervention technology means that surgeons are able to use less invasive processes to do most surgical procedures, which means that patients are subjected to less risk of infection and are able to recover faster.

Though the amazing advances in surgical technology have helped reduce the rate of medical malpractice related to surgery, and surgical complications, it has not eradicated the problem.  Unfortunately, thousands of Americans are injured each year due to the malpractice of surgeons, surgeon’s assistants, and nurses.

Failure to Diagnose - Every day, Americans make a trip to their doctor, or local hospital, with a complaint regarding some pain or discomfort that they cannot treat themselves.  We rely on our healthcare providers to properly diagnose whatever disease or ailment we are suffering from, and then prescribe the appropriate treatment so we can recover.  In most cases, our doctors and hospitals do a terrific job.  In some tragic cases, however, a doctor or hospital employees fail to properly recognize the signs or symptoms of a disease or ailment, and it causes irreparable or fatal injuries to the patient.

A failure to diagnose case is actually a catch-all term which is used to describe a number of different types of negligent acts.  This would included a delayed diagnosis which leads to health complications.  A failure to diagnose case can apply to nearly any specialty or medical field.  For example, a patient who presents to a cardiologist with complaints of chest pain, and tingling in the extremities but whom is sent home without further testing, and later succumbs to the heart attack he was having, may have a claim against that doctor for a failure to diagnose his condition.  As another example, a patient who presents with a misshapen and discoloured mole which is not tested but is later found to be cancerous, could have a case.

A cancer misdiagnosis is one of the most common medical malpractice cases which are brought using a failure to diagnose theory of liability.  Though medical professionals have gotten much better at recognizing the signs and symptoms of cancer, and the detection tools have also become more sophisticated, many cases are still not correctly diagnosed.