Before you file a malpractice lawsuit, or even consult an attorney, you have to decide what you hope to accomplish. It cannot repair your injuries or make you forget your pain and suffering. It cannot bring the dead back to life or take away the pa
in and bitterness of the crushed hopes you had for your brain damaged child. Usually, it cannot even punish the doctor or the hospital; they are insured. The only thing a lawsuit can do is give you some financial compensation for your injury or loss.
Every day people sue doctors for various reasons that have nothing to do with financial recovery and most of those cases are lost, leaving the people poorer and more disillusioned than before. Here are some of the valid and invalid reasons why people go to court. A medical malpractice case can be lengthy and cost a lot of money. Before you being a lawsuit, you should have some idea whether your case can be won and get you enough money to make it worthwhile.
You have to look at what lawyers call the actuarial value of the case, which is the odds that a jury will find in your favor multiplied by the average award for your type of injury. How much are you likely to get if you win. In the next two articles, we will discuss the common types of malpractice complaints and the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Will you find a case exactly like yours in these articles? Probably not. No two patients are exactly alike and every malpractice is different. Two cases may seem identical, but treatment that would be appropriate in one case could be malpractice in the other. A slight difference in the dosage of a drug may make the difference between like and death.
What you will find in these articles is a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of difference types of cases that you can apply to your case and get an idea as to your chances of success. But, before you attempt to make any decision regarding your own case, you should all these articles that do not seem to apply to your special problem, so you will know what constitutes good medical care and what is not good medical care. Then, you can apply those principles to your own case and come up with a reliable opinion as to whether you have a valid complaint and what it is likely to be worth.