Malpractice Specialists

Medical Malpractice - Who is Treating You?

Do you know who is treating you? Patients are often unaware that the professional treating them is not a physician. For example, a patient goes into a routine outpatient procedure under which they are sedated with anesthesia. The anesthesiologist M.D. greets the patient briefly and asks some history and may perform a short examination. This takes place after another professional, likely a C.R.N.A. certified nurse anesthetist and/or a nurse has taken a history from the patient. The M.D. doesn't do a real thorough job taking the history or performing an examination because he assumes this has been done by the nurse and/or C.R.N.A. He is present to sedate the patient and once sedated, leaves the operating room giving control and supervision over to the C.R.N.A. The patient has no idea that this is taking place and that they are not being cared for by the M.D. If something goes wrong during the surgery with the anesthesia, the C.R.N.A. is allowed to use discretion to take care of the patient and may give more anesthesia without asking permission of the M.D. They don't have as much education and are not allowed by law to practice without the supervision of the M.D., but "supervision" is a loose term. What sometimes happens? The non-M.D.

Another example are physician assistants who routinely treat patients in the E.R. The patient makes assumptions that the person giving the orders and treatment is a physician and does not know to inquire further. He is not aware that he is not being treated by a physician assistant and if he is, he is not aware of what that means. Specifically, he is not aware that the physician assistant is again loosely supervised by the physician in charge who may or may not look at the patient's chart until after, and in some cases, well after, the patient has been discharged. Then, it may be too late as for example, in a hypothetical case in which the patient presents to the E.R. for back pain, gets examined, treated, and ultimately discharged by a physician assistant who diagnoses back strain. Turns out, the back pain was a symptom of a heart attack and the patient goes home and dies of another massive heart attack. At deposition, the physician will testify that he did nothing wrong and it was no breach to allow the physician assistant to make the decisions he did and for the physician to sign off on the chart days later, having never been aware of the patient or the treatment prior to his death!

"BUYER" BEWARE!

Renee C. Walsh Walsh Law PLLC www.walshlawpllc.com www.lawrefs.com

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"Liability and Medical Malpractice"
Medical malpractice is a difficult area to talk about. What people think it is and what it actually is are different things. It is not simply any negative outcome resulting from an interaction with a doctor, medical malpractice is not that simple. "Practicing" is an interesting word when it comes to medicine as the jobs doctors do are not always done perfectly.

When You Should Consider a Medical Malpractice Suit
Every year there are countless numbers of people that are filing medical malpractice lawsuits due to misdiagnosis, negligence, medical errors, delayed diagnosis and surgery errors, and many other things that were needless delays or errors that resulted in the injury or even death of a patient.

Improve Your Chances of Winning a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit
People hold doctors with high regard since they are intellectuals who deal with a very important aspect of every person?s life: their health. We trust doctors with our lives because they are experts when it comes to medical issues.

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