3 of the most common forms of medical malpractice

On Behalf of | Jan 21, 2025 | Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice is the last thing people expect to experience when they go to the doctor. People generally trust their physicians to provide them with a competent evaluation and appropriate treatment. Unfortunately, doctors can sometimes make mistakes.

Sometimes, those mistakes are serious enough to warrant allegations of medical malpractice. In a general sense, medical malpractice involves any conduct by a physician that deviates from current standards and best practices. Some types of medical malpractice are far more common than others.

What are the most frequent forms of medical malpractice?

1. Medication errors

There are two types of medication errors that dominate drug-related malpractice claims. The first involves prescribing errors. Doctors recommend the wrong treatment for the wrong dosage based on the information available about the patient, their symptoms, and the drug in question.

The second involves administration errors, often on the part of nurses rather than physicians. They hand out the wrong medication or input the wrong information into an intravenous (IV) drug machine. Medication errors can result in dangerous interactions, overdoses and treatment failures.

2. Diagnostic errors

Doctors typically need to determine what causes symptoms in order to treat the patient effectively. Diagnostic errors may involve a doctor failing to diagnose the patient. They might ignore self-reported symptoms or bypass requesting tests and send the patient home without a diagnosis. The patient then does not receive the treatment they require.

Physicians may also reach the wrong diagnosis. They might diagnose someone with a chest cold when what they really have is the early presentation of a cough caused by lung cancer. Misdiagnosis may result in a patient undergoing the wrong type of treatment as well as delaying the treatment necessary for their recovery.

3. Surgical errors

Minor surgical errors are quite common. Relatively serious surgical errors occur dozens of times every week somewhere in the United States.

Common surgical errors may involve anesthesia mistakes. The surgeons may perform the wrong procedure or operate on the wrong body part. They may also leave items behind inside patients after the end of a procedure, which can have devastating medical consequences.

Birth injuries are also somewhat common. Doctors may make mistakes when they delay key interventions during labor or they offer the wrong interventions with negative medical consequences.

Filing a medical malpractice lawsuit may help people cover the expenses generated by the failings of medical professionals. Those who understand how common malpractice is may find the confidence to speak up when they are questioning the standard of care that they received.