What Are the Most Prevalent Types of Malpractice Claims?

Many experts agree that malpractice cases are commonly due to misdiagnosis. Nearly 1/3 of all malpractice cases are the result of misdiagnosis. Damages resulting from misdiagnosis may relate to injury from the ensuing treatment or lack of proper treatment. Misdiagnosis is often associated with emergency room treatment. Common medical conditions missed by emergency room physicians include heart attack, because the EKG is not always accurate, stroke, meningitis, and appendicitis.

Additional types of diagnostic errors include failure to make a diagnosis or delayed diagnosis. The most common undiagnosed conditions are Toxoplasmosis, sleep disorders, appendicitis, heart attack, certain infections, osteoporosis, hypertension, migraine, thyroid disorders and ovarian cancer.

Medication errors or prescription drug errors are common causes of physican malpractice. They harm an estimated one and one half million patients each year. Drug errors can include physicians giving the wrong medicine, incorrect dosage, incorrect prescription or incorrect medicine combination. Medication errors are found at all levels of of the health care system, including in-patient settings outpatient settings, long-term care facilities, and dispensing pharmacies.

Another commonly found type of medical malpractice is unnecessary treatment. A 1995 report estimated that nearly 60% of all surgeries are unnecessary. Another study estimated that nearly 7 1/2 million unnecessary medical and surgical procedures are performed each year. According to Gary Wais, a Baltimore malpractice lawyer with Wais Law, a Baltimore malpractice law firm unnecessary medical procedures such as stents and general overuse of the health system by doctors are among the most common types of medical malpractice errors seen today.

No single medical condition is associated with more than five percent of all negligence claims, however, certain fields of medicine account for a disproportionately large number of malpractice cases. Many malpractice cases, for instance, are related to birth injury. The majority of these cases are due to obstetric birth trauma. failure to provide pre-natal care, failure to administer tests that could have indicated abnormalities, failure to recognize symptoms of fetal distress, hastening of childbirth, which caused injuries for the baby and the mother, and finally failure to provide a proper standard of care to premature babies. Anesthesia errors account for a large proportion of medical malpractice. Among the major causes of malpractice claims in this field are inproper prescription or administration of anesthesia, failure to appreciate an anesthesia risk or improper monitoring during anesthesia induction or administration Surgical errors also account for a large number of medical malpractice. Major causes of surgical malpractice include: puncturing of internal organs, operating on the wrong body part, leaving surgical instruments inside the patient and improper surgical techniques. All of the fore mentioned surgical errors can cause severe damage to the patient and or death.

Finally, studies have shown that the total number of errors and deaths were greater for outpatient setting malpractice than for in patient malpractice. However, overall, malpractice that occurs within the hospital setting tends to have a more severe outcome.

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Gary Wais is a medical malpractice attorney, working for Wais Law, a medical malpractice law firm specializing in medical malpractice

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