What is the Most Common Type of Malpractice Case?

There is a consensus among medical experts that misdiagnosis is a common type of medical error. Nearly a third of all malpractice cases concern misdiagnosis. Patient injury related to misdiagnosis may result from improper medical treatment or the failure to render proper treatment. Misdiagnosis is often found in the emergency room setting. The most frequent misdiagnoses made by emergency room physicians include heart attack, because the EKG is not always accurate, stroke, meningitis, and appendicitis.

Other types of diagnosis related malpractice claims are about failure to make a diagnosis or delayed diagnosis. The most frequently undiagnosed medical conditions include Toxoplasmosis, sleep disorders, appendicitis, heart attack, certain infections, osteoporosis, hypertension, migraine, thyroid disorders and ovarian cancer.

Another major type of physician mistake relates to medication or prescription drug error. This type of error harms an estimated one and one half million patients every 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 medical care, including hospital settings, outpatient settings, long-term care facilities, and dispensing pharmacies.

Unnecessary medical treatment is another common cause of medical malpractice. 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 the failure to provide a proper standard of care to premature babies. Anesthesia errors account for a large proportion of medical malpractice. Among the malpractice claims found in this field are inproper prescription or administration of anesthesia, failure to appreciate an anesthesia risk or improper monitoring. Surgical errors also account for a large proportion of medical malpractice. Major causes of surgical malpractice include: puncturing of internal organs, operating on the wrong body part, leaving surgical instruments in the patient and improper surgical techniques. All of these errors can cause severe and fatal damages.

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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