Physicians who accept responsibility for treatment decisions are accountable for their medical practice errors.

The truth is this: Most of us inherently trust doctors and physicians to keep our best interest in mind and to have the ability to safely help us. This trust may not always be founded, but it’s a deeply rooted part of our culture, and even if we get butterflies before a major operation, our logic still tells us that we’re going to come out fine on the other side.

When that isn’t the case, medical malpractice can really damage our psyche and give us a deep fear of medical attention of any kind. In many cases, that is just the beginning of what happens to our psyche.

Every year medical malpractice cases in America’s most advanced cities like New York, Chicago and California, causing at least 27,000 injuries and 7,000 deaths. Eight times as many patients are injured as ever file a claim, and 16 times as many suffer injuries as ever receive any compensation. At the highest level, the estimated number of medical injuries nationally is more than one million per year; approximately 85,000 malpractice suits are filed annually.

To deter against the medical malpractice cases and these frightening facts and figures from the most developed country of the world, we need to know about what medical malpractice is all about.

What Is Medical Malpractice?

Medical malpractice cases occur when a healthcare provider fails to exercise that degree of care and skill required by a patient. If these standards are not followed, malpractice may have occurred. Medical malpractice can be generally defined as substandard treatment by a physician or other healthcare professional that directly results in physical or economic damages to the patient. “Substandard” care refers to care that violates normal medical practices.

Five Most Common and Most Frightening Effects of Medical Malpractice Cases

There are many different outcomes in medical malpractice cases, but here are some common after-effects of medical malpractice and a medical negligence.

1. Pain and Suffering

The foremost and obvious effect of having something go wrong in a simplest of medical treatment to the major operation is the pain and suffering of the injured.  

2. Disability or Deformity

In many severe medical malpractice cases, a patient may end up disabled or deformed as a result of medical malpractice, causing a disadvantage for the rest of their life, affecting their ability to work and do pretty much anything else.

3. Emotional Stress and Mental Fatigue

One of the deepest extents of any medical malpractice case brings to a person in a situation of emotional stress caused by the negligence of a doctor or a medical practitioner. Even a temporary situation can result in shock and complete re-evaluation of what we can expect from the society around us.

4. Financial Miseries

Medical malpractice negligence happening can become a very expensive issue for the patient. Because it might not only increase the time of recovery from the scratch but also skyrocket the cost of medical attention and most importantly the financial loss due to unemployment.

5. Death

Almost 98,000 people die in hospitals annually each year due to medical malpractice cases. Whether from the wrong medication or something more sinister, these things do happen.

Two Basic Reasons of Increasing Medical Malpractice Cases

Medical inflation is the most important reason that has triggered the medical malpractice cases all around the world from the most developed countries to the countries of the third world. The first reason which halts me up is that the expenses are the biggest and the most predictable part of damages in the high severity cases that drive medical malpractice payments in individual cases to increase at a rate that is closer to the rate of medical inflation than to rate of inflation in the other areas.

Second reason which daunts out expressively is that the health-care sector economy is growing more rapidly than the economy as a whole. Malpractice payments can be expected to grow at about the same rate as the size of health-care sector of the economy and as fast as medical prices. This is in-fact what the research has proved in recent years.

Concluding Comments

•  In principle, a negligence rule of liability against medical malpractice cases can correct these distortions and create incentives for efficient care and risk-taking, under certain conditions. These conditions include that courts set the standard of due care at the efficient level, that damages be optimally set, that providers be liable for failure to obtain informed consent, and that suits be brought and compensation awarded if and only if negligence occurs.

•  Efficient deterrence incentives can, in theory, also be achieved by a rule of strict liability, whereby providers are liable for all injuries caused by medical care, regardless of negligence.

•  Adjusting for medical inflation helps prevent us from mistaking in medical procedures and also a major decrease in medical malpractice cases can be expected.

•  The second thing which can be done to cut the maximizing rate of medical malpractice cases is that to increase the liability, like if a doctor or medical practitioner malpractices, he or she should be arrested and punished to the maximum prison sentence. And if the felony has reached up to death of a patient then the medical practitioner must be treated as the criminal murderer‘s are treated in the judgment court because the human life is more precious than anything.  

•  Committing to implement these standards we can deter those medical practitioner or doctors who are ever been involved in such activities but can also retaliate aggressively against the increasing amount of medical negligence and medical malpractice cases.

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