We trust our doctors, nurses and other health care providers to heal us and make us well. Most are dedicated to this goal, and work hard to accomplish it each day.
However, they are also grappling with reduced staffing, grueling schedules and increasing demands from employers. This does not bode well for patient safety. Neither does the fact that some providers are simply careless or even reckless in their work.
At The Law Offices of Jeffrey S. Glassman, our Boston medical malpractice attorneys recognize how traumatizing it is to suffer as a result of a medical professional’s negligence. We also know these cases are incredibly complex, differing vastly from general personal injury cases in terms of the proof burden.
These cases are strictly vetted by a tribunal long before they ever make it to the trial phase, and most defendants will pour copious resources into aggressively fighting these claims – to deny plaintiffs their rightful compensation, but also to avoid a public stain on their record.
Injured patients and surviving family members of those lost to medical malpractice in Massachusetts must hire an attorney with the ample experience and resources to fight back. Because there is so much to overcome early on in these cases, there is no room for error.
What is Medical Malpractice?
Let’s start by saying what medical malpractice is not. It is not merely having a poor health outcome in the course of a medical procedure or treatment for illness.
The fact is, people become sick and injured all the time, and it is not necessarily the fault of health care providers.
However, every person who receives medical treatment is entitled to expect quality care. When a doctor, nurse, paramedic, emergency medical technician or other medical professional fails to provide the acceptable standard of care for a patient, those affected have a right to take action.
The “acceptable standard of care” question is one that must be established very early in the case. The standard of care is understood to be the generally accepted practices and procedures used by other medical professionals in the same geographic area when treating patients suffering the same disease or disorder under the same or similar circumstances.
In order to prove a breach of this standard of care, your lawyer will have to rely on testimony from expert medical witnesses, who must have extensive experience in the same type of medicine at the same level of expertise and in the same region as defendant(s).
Additional medical experts are often required to testify that the standard of care breach caused patient’s injuries, and further attest to the extent of the damages.
