New Jersey Medical Malpractice Attorneys

Holding Negligent Medical Practitioners Liable for Mistakes

When you go to the doctor’s office or a medical clinic for treatment, you should be able to expect that you will be treated correctly and put on the path to recovery. If you leave the medical center worse than you arrived, though, then medical malpractice might have occurred. At that point, you should start to consider how to take legal action in response to set things right and give yourself a chance to recover from your new or worsened injuries.

Simonson Goodman Platzer PC offers five-star legal counsel to victims of medical malpractice throughout New Jersey. If your medical provider hurt you or allowed a pre-existing condition to worsen, then we want to know about it. With our experience and resources, we can bring a claim or lawsuit against any defendant, including major medical institutions and individual healthcare providers.

Learn how to start a medical malpractice case with professional counsel. Call (800) 817-5029 now.

Defining Medical Malpractice

After leaving a medical center and feeling dissatisfied with your care, you might assume that medical malpractice must have happened. However, this is not always the case. Medical malpractice is a specific type of error that can be rare and difficult to prove.

Four important elements to a medical malpractice claim include:

• Duty: The medical provider must have owed the patient a duty of care, which is often established through a doctor-patient relationship.
• Breach of duty: The duty of care owed to a patient essentially means that the medical provider must act within reason and follow an accepted standard of medical care and knowledge. For a medical malpractice claim to be valid, the medical provider must have breached that duty of care.
• Injury: The breach of duty must result in an injury suffered by the patient. The same is true if the breach caused a condition or injury to worsen due to the medical provider’s inaction or incorrect action.
• Damages: Lastly, for a medical malpractice claim to be legally sound, the patient’s injury must have caused them to experience a form of compensable damage.

Oftentimes, medical malpractice case investigators will ask if the medical mistake that was made would have been made by a different and reasonable medical practitioner in the same situation. If the mistake or error likely would have not been avoided by another medical provider, then it will be more difficult to argue that a medical malpractice claim is justified.

Common Instances of Medical Malpractice

On an average day, a medical provider will have numerous duties and tasks to fulfill for patients. For this reason, medical malpractice cases can be highly varied. Our team of New Jersey medical malpractice lawyers is ready to work on virtually any case that comes our way, though.

Commonly occurring forms of medical malpractice include:

• Misdiagnoses: Doctors have the duty to accurately diagnose their patients’ conditions. Diagnosing one condition as another can cause serious health problems. For example, misdiagnosing a stroke, heart attack, or cancer as a less severe health complication is surprisingly common.
• Failures to diagnose: In some cases, a doctor will fail to diagnose the patient altogether, sending them home without a diagnosis or aftercare plan. Or a doctor will fail to diagnose the patient until weeks or months later after the condition has had time to worsen.
• Surgical errors: Our medical malpractice team focuses on surgical error cases, such as those involving unsafe appendicitis procedures or endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty procedures.
• Medication Errors: This includes prescribing the wrong medication, administering the wrong dosage, or failing to consider a patient's allergies or other medications they are taking.
• Birth Injuries: These are injuries sustained by a newborn or mother during childbirth due to medical negligence, such as mishandling of delivery instruments, failure to monitor fetal distress, or improper use of delivery aids like forceps or vacuum extractors.
• Anesthesia Errors: Anesthesia malpractice can involve administering too much or too little anesthesia, failing to monitor a patient's vital signs during surgery, or using defective equipment.
• Failure to Obtain Informed Consent: Healthcare providers are required to inform patients of the risks, benefits, and alternatives to any proposed medical treatment or procedure. Failure to obtain informed consent can lead to legal action if the patient suffers harm as a result.
• Hospital Negligence: This encompasses a wide range of negligent actions or omissions by hospitals, including inadequate staffing, improper training of staff, unsanitary conditions, or failure to maintain medical equipment.
• Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect: In cases involving elderly or disabled patients in nursing homes, medical malpractice can occur through neglect, physical abuse, medication errors, or failure to provide adequate care.
• Emergency Room Errors: Mistakes made in the emergency room, such as failing to prioritize patients based on the severity of their condition, misdiagnosing a medical emergency, or discharging a patient prematurely, can constitute medical malpractice.

Damages Available in a Medical Malpractice Case

The damages owed to you after being hurt by medical malpractice will be unique to your case. What one medical malpractice claimant receives will not be the same as the next. Part of our job will be to make sure you get whatever damage is owed to you in full.

Typically, medical malpractice claimants can demand damages related to all past and future medical treatments and specialized care. If your wages and income were impacted due to your injury or condition, then you can demand compensation for those losses, too. We can also factor in your pain and suffering as non-economic damage. However, in New Jersey, non-economic damage is usually and currently capped at $350,000, regardless of how much you have endured due to a medical provider’s mistakes.

Importantly, New Jersey courts have recognized that “loss of enjoyment of life,” sometimes called hedonic damages, should be compensated in appropriate cases. The courts have said that the loss of pleasure and enjoyment is a loss that should be compensated, and compensation should be granted to those who, because they are in a comatose state, are “…unable to appreciate one’s own restrictions.”

What to Do If You are Hurt by Medical Malpractice

After suffering an injury due to a doctor’s mistakes, you can feel lost and unsure who you can trust. If you want to seek compensation and justice, though, then you need to take legal action sooner than later. Try to collect yourself and take a few steps after medical malpractice has left you or a loved one worse than before the treatment occurred.

Take these steps if you suspect medical malpractice has hurt you:

1. Switch providers if possible: You can call your healthcare insurance provider and ask to change medical care providers or clinics if possible. Returning to the same healthcare team that you think hurt you could increase the risk of suffering further harm due to medical negligence.
2. Seek further medical attention if necessary: If you still need medical treatments for your condition or injury, then please seek it where you can. Do not skip necessary treatments because you suspect medical malpractice might have happened once. Always prioritize your health and safety.
3. Get a copy of your medical records: Ask your medical provider to give you a copy of your medical records. You need to see what information is included in the record, so you can pass that to your attorney later.
4. Create a symptoms journal: Start recording your daily symptoms, pains, and complications that you believe are related to your injury or mistreatment. Thorough symptoms journals are sometimes the most compelling forms of evidence in medical malpractice cases.
5. Call a medical malpractice lawyer: Dial (800) 817-5029 to connect with our New Jersey medical malpractice attorneys. Allow us to investigate your case sooner than later and while your memory of what happened is at its sharpest.

Medical Malpractice FAQ

Fight for Your Right to Compensation

Every injured patient deserves to have their voice heard. Let our New Jersey medical malpractice lawyers be the ones who amplify yours. We would be honored to fight tenaciously and tirelessly in your name and in the pursuit of protecting patient rights throughout the state.

Schedule a FREE initial consultation with our firm now.