Medical, Device & Drug Negligence

Doctors go to school and train for a long time to learn the proper standard of care they should uphold with every patient. The standard of care for medical professionals equals the same care that another reasonable doctor in the same situation would use. When a doctor fails to act with proper care and cause injuries, medical negligence occurs. Not every simple mistake a doctor makes will constitute medical negligence and an experienced attorney can help evaluate whether the error rose to the level of negligence in your case.

Some common examples of medical negligence include as follows:

• Medication and prescription errors;
• Failure to diagnose a medical condition;
• Misdiagnosis of a condition;
• Failure to provide timely medical treatment for a condition;
• Surgical errors;
• Mistakes during childbirth.

To have a valid case, it is necessary that the medical negligence actually caused or exacerbated an illness or injury, resulting in losses.

Before you undergo a medical procedure such as a surgery, Oregon law requires that your doctor must fully explain the possible benefits and risks of the procedure and inform you if there are any other options for your treatment. With full information, you can make an educated decision whether to proceed with the procedure. However, even if you signed a consent form, there are situations in which you can still hold a doctor liable if something during the procedure goes wrong. Such situations include:

• The doctor failed to give you all the information you needed to make an informed decision;
• The doctor took steps beyond the specific consent you provided without your permission;
• The doctor made a mistake during the procedure that deviated from the required standard of care normally expected during such a procedure.

Oregon law sets out a strict statute of limitations for medical negligence claims, which is a strict deadline you must meet in order to recover. If you file a malpractice claim after this statute of limitations has run, your case will almost certainly be dismissed. For a negligence claim arising from any surgical, medical, or dental mistakes, the statute of limitations in our state is two years from the date of the injury.

However, many victims of medical malpractice do not realize the negligence and injury has occurred for some time, so the statute of limitations may not begin until the injury is discovered. For instance, imagine that you go to the emergency room with chest pain and the doctor sends you home with a diagnosis of indigestion. Instead, you actually had a heart attack, which would have been detected had the doctor performed certain tests or asked certain questions. Six months later, you have another heart attack that could have been prevented with proper treatment the first time. Since you did not know about your misdiagnosis for six months, the statute of limitations would not start until your discovery.

Because the standard of care in medicine depends on the details of the situation and on how other similarly trained medical professionals would act in such a situation, the most important evidence in a medical malpractice case is often testimony from medical experts. An expert can analyze what happened and give their opinion whether the doctor in question met the expected standard of care or not. In addition, a medical expert can testify that the negligence did, in fact, lead to your additional illness or injury.

Other important evidence includes proof of the losses you suffered as a result of the medical negligence. This can include additional medical costs, lost income if you missed work, physical and emotional pain and suffering, disability, and more.