This is the official blog of the Law Office of Michael J. Weiss, a Medical Malpractice Lawyer in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It covers the things you should know about medical malpractice and the actions you could take to help you voice out your rights. Why should you be informed about these things? Accidents and unfortunate events do happen. You should know what to act in case they do.
"Medical malpractice is the failure of a medical professional to act in accordance with reasonable and prudent medical standards".
Despite the focus in medical malpractice, this blog is not limited to cases of medical actions gone wrong - they also provide ample information to the fields they are connected to. They feature cases such as personal injuries, workplace accidents, legal malpractice, and wrongful deaths.
Let's dive into the practice areas they cover...
Injuries
This includes personal injuries, birth injuries, anesthesia injuries, and other injuries inflicted to a person whether it is due to medical malpractice or other causes.
Personal injuries are those caused by others' negligence, wrongful or violent actions, and other actions resulting to the injury. This is the most common type of injuries. Most likely the compensation is from the intensity of damage inflicted to the victim.
Birth injuries, on the other hand, are those damages inflicted to a new-born baby. These are the injuries caused by mishandling of the baby while it is released which may result to Erb's Palsy (caused by a damage to the brachial plexus of the baby, or that between the neck and the shoulders) and the lack of prevention to the injury.
Anesthesia injuries are also common on the medical field. If you don't know, anesthesia prevents the patients who undergo surgeries from feeling the pain caused by the procedure. But a wrong amount of it will cause injuries, even death.
To share with you, just recently I took my cat to the vet. She had a big cut on her abdomen, which may be caused by having jumped onto a sharp pointed object. (She's one hell of an adventurer!) And so the cut needed to be stitched. I was there and before the anesthesia was injected, they weigh her and told me it's for the anesthesia. So I learned that the amount of anesthesia should be based from the weight of the patient.
A wrong amount of it could lead to brain damage, stroke, paralysis, other serious problems on the nervous system (which includes the motor parts), and the worst cases resulting to death.
Personal injuries are those caused by others' negligence, wrongful or violent actions, and other actions resulting to the injury. This is the most common type of injuries. Most likely the compensation is from the intensity of damage inflicted to the victim.
Birth injuries, on the other hand, are those damages inflicted to a new-born baby. These are the injuries caused by mishandling of the baby while it is released which may result to Erb's Palsy (caused by a damage to the brachial plexus of the baby, or that between the neck and the shoulders) and the lack of prevention to the injury.
Anesthesia injuries are also common on the medical field. If you don't know, anesthesia prevents the patients who undergo surgeries from feeling the pain caused by the procedure. But a wrong amount of it will cause injuries, even death.
To share with you, just recently I took my cat to the vet. She had a big cut on her abdomen, which may be caused by having jumped onto a sharp pointed object. (She's one hell of an adventurer!) And so the cut needed to be stitched. I was there and before the anesthesia was injected, they weigh her and told me it's for the anesthesia. So I learned that the amount of anesthesia should be based from the weight of the patient.
A wrong amount of it could lead to brain damage, stroke, paralysis, other serious problems on the nervous system (which includes the motor parts), and the worst cases resulting to death.
Misdiagnosis
This is also a common case with doctors - misdiagnosing a patient. What could it lead to? I recently rewatched the Poltergeist trilogy and made a review. Of course as I was doing a research about the film, I did a background check of the main characters. If you've watched Poltergeist you would remember Carol Anne, the beautiful little girl with a straight blonde hair and bangs. I discovered that she died at the age of 12 years old, months before the release of the last film from the trilogy. She has been misdiagnosed. The doctors have misdiagnosed her for her long-standing disease which eventually caused her death. If the real cause of her health problems have been diagnosed, it could have been cured. Her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the hospital.
Accidents and Wrongful Death
As I said, accidents do happen. But if it is due to other person's fault (or an entity let's say a company), they are liable. Just like my previous example, the family of Heather O'Rourke (Carol Anne) filed a wrongful death suit because of the misdiagnosis (misdiagnosis that lead to wrongful death = double trouble!).
Of course law is not just about pointing out who they think is at fault. We always rely on the evidences. A thorough research that could sometimes lead to years is mostly the case. Part of the research is pointing out the cause of the accident, what could prevent it, what are the factors that affect the happening of the accident, who's at fault, the damages, the injuries and deaths if there are, formulating the amount of the compensation, and many other things too complex for us to be able to explain here.
One thing I learned is that when a person died and it's someone's at fault, they would research about the person who died and the compensation would be based from the earning potential of the person - What could he earn if he had not died? Does he have a family or someone to support? And What is the monetary amount of the compensation based from the study of the background of that person who died?
The Combination of Two Major Studies
If you know someone who studies medicine, you would know the things they are dealing with everyday - medical terminologies, that accuracy of everything is not a must but it is the only option (if you want to survive), professionalism, and all those long years in the medical school.
If you know someone who studies law, you would know the things they are dealing with everyday - law terminologies, that accuracy of everything is not a must but it is the only option (if you want to survive), professionalism, and all those long years in the law school.
When you combine the two, I couldn't imagine anyone who could still live with all those knowledge they need to keep in order to be a professional on both field. That's what Atty. Michael J. Weiss does, believe it or not.
This post is a part of
BlogFest 2011 hosted by Loading-Info and
the June 2011 Contest of BlogEngage.
BlogFest 2011 hosted by Loading-Info and
the June 2011 Contest of BlogEngage.
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