Medical Malpractice

More people die each year in the United States from medical errors that highway accidents, breast cancer and AIDS. Medical malpractice and medical negligence are currently the third leading cause of death in the United States. Doctors and nurses are just like the rest of us – they sometimes make mistakes. And when caregivers make mistakes, they must be accountable for the harm they cause – just like the rest of us. We trust doctors. We need to trust them. When they violate that trust, doctors need to be held responsible.

According to a report from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), approximately 200,000 people in the United States die each year due to mistakes by medical professionals and prescription errors. It was reported that 12,000 deaths a year result from unnecessary surgery; 7,000 deaths result from medication errors in hospitals; 20,000 deaths are caused by other hospital errors; 80,000 deaths a year result from from hospital–born infections and 106,000 deaths a year from non–error, adverse effects of medications.

More then 13,000 doctors in the United States have been disciplined for serious incompetence or misconduct, including drug abuse, negligence, substandard patient care, Medicaid fraud and patient sexual abuse. According to a study by Washington Health Group, most of those physicians continue to treat patients and retain their licenses. State confidentiality laws make it nearly impossible to find out the background information on a doctor, even if that doctor has been disciplined for incompetence or negligence. Recent studies confirm that a small percentage of doctors are responsible for the vast majority of injuries caused by substandard care. This reaffirms our general perception that most doctors are good doctors, and worthy of our trust.

Our consults on medical malpractice matters are free. We handle such matters on a contingent fee basis. We also have an on-staff physician who assists in reviewing such matters. The client is not charged for such a review.

Examples of cases that we have handled and would consider handling include: