Chicago Tribute reported on January 8, 2011 in “Patients have a right to know, Illinois House says” that legislation is under consideration to give patients the right to know the histories of Illinois doctors, including whether the physician has been fired, convicted of a crime or has made a medical malpractice payment within the past five years. The legislation, passed by the House, Patients’ Right to Know Act, is to help patients make sure the doctor they’re seeing is not a criminal or a fraud. The current information posted on the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation’s website is whether the department has disciplined a physician. Under the bill, the regulatory agency would be required to post information about terminations, criminal convictions and malpractice payments. The doctors lobby has argued the online physician profiles would drain state resources, but a fiscal analysis showed it would cost $40,250 to maintain. Though patients can currently go through public court records on medical malpractice cases or criminal convictions, there is no place that provides this information free of charge.
In medical malpractice, the breach of a legal duty causes an injury when an injury would not have occurred but for the breach. Damages result from an injury when a patient suffers monetary or emotional losses such as death from a failure to diagnose cancer.
Common categories of medical malpractice include:
• failure to diagnose,
• mistakes during surgery,
• birth injuries,
• prescribing incorrect medication,
• surgical errors,
• hospital negligence,
• cancer misdiagnosis.
For example, a child swallows foreign metal material, and the attending physician fails to diagnose the trouble, resulting in the child’s death. Another example, a physician improperly monitors a newborn baby with a metabolic disorder, leaving the child permanently brain damaged.
Often, overwhelming medical expenses prevent people from obtaining proper diagnoses and treatments. Engage a Chicago attorney with a long history of successfully fighting for victims’ compensation in medical malpractice cases. In medical malpractice, types of damages the injured person may recover include:
• medical care,
• loss of earnings,
• pain and suffering,
• emotional distress,
• psychological counseling.
For instance, incorrect medication may result from a patient undergoing unnecessary surgery that leads to severe pain for which a doctor prescribes addictive medication, turning the patient into a drug addict. Another example, surgical error may occur when a patient undergoes an unnecessary heart catheterization and develops a blood clot in an improperly evaluated leg, leaving a patient permanently disabled.
Contact us today for an evaluation of the merits in your medical malpractice case.
Speak Your Mind