When you’re sick, the only thing you want is to feel better. But when your physician isn’t helping—or if his treatments make you feel worse—you become frustrated and a little scared. Why isn’t it working? Does my doctor even know what he’s doing?
In some cases these questions are justified. According to the World Health Organization, one in ten Washington D.C. patients are harmed or injured as a result of medical malpractice.
This statistic, although desperately high, does not mean that every tenth time you go to a doctor you’ll be a victim. However, doctors are extremely busy and rely heavily on taking risks and fellow colleagues’ opinions. This allows the possibility for more human error and mistakes.
These risks don’t necessarily always mean they are being negligent. As long as their choice for treatment is based on educated reasoning and can be backed my medical science, malpractice cannot be inferred if the treatment doesn’t work.
The signs you should look out for to determine if your injuries were actually caused by negligence are:
- You followed your doctor’s (and only your doctor’s) advice for treatment and it didn’t help or your symptoms worsened.
- A second opinion from a different doctor or hospital suggested a different and well known course of action with better results.
- Your injury was/is directly the fault of the physician, not a known side effect or complication of the initial injury, illness, or disease
If you or a loved one feel you have been harmed by a doctor, hospital, or HMO, please contact Shevlin Smith, the Washington D.C. medical malpractice lawyers, at 703-721-4233 for a free consultation.