What Are the Most Prevalent Types of Malpractice Claims?

Many experts agree that malpractice cases are commonly due to misdiagnosis. Nearly 1/3 of all malpractice cases are the result of misdiagnosis. Damages resulting from misdiagnosis may relate to injury from the ensuing treatment or lack of proper treatment. Misdiagnosis is often found in the emergency room setting. The most frequent misdiagnoses made by emergency room physicians include heart attack, because the EKG is not always accurate, stroke, meningitis, and appendicitis.

Additional types of diagnostic errors include failure to make a diagnosis or delayed diagnosis. The most common undiagnosed conditions are Toxoplasmosis, sleep disorders, appendicitis, heart attack, certain infections, osteoporosis, hypertension, migraine, thyroid disorders and ovarian cancer.

Another major type of physician mistake relates to medication or prescription drug error. This type of error harms an estimated one and one half million patients every year. Drug errors can include physicians giving the wrong medicine, incorrect dosage, incorrect prescription or incorrect medicine combination. Medication errors are found at all levels of of the health care system, including hospital settings, outpatient facilities, long-term care institutions, and dispensing pharmacies.

Another commonly found type of medical malpractice is unnecessary treatment. A study released in 1995 showed that close to 60% of all surgical procedures are unnecessary. Another study found that nearly 7 1/2 million unnecessary medical and surgical procedures are performed each year. According to Gary Wais, a Baltimore malpractice lawyer with Wais Law, a Baltimore malpractice law firm unnecessary medical procedures such as stents and general overuse of the health system by doctors are among the most common types of medical malpractice errors seen today.

While no single medical condition is associated with more than 5 % of all malpractice claims, there are certain fields of medicine that account for a disproportionately large number of malpractice cases. Many malpractice cases, for instance, are related to birth injury. Of these, most are the result of obstetric birth trauma. failure to provide pre-natal care, failure to administer tests that could have indicated abnormalities, failure to recognize symptoms of fetal distress, hastening of childbirth, which caused injuries for the baby and the mother, and finally the failure to provide proper care to premature babies. Anesthesia errors make up a large proportion of medical malpractice. Among the malpractice claims found in this field are inproper prescription or administration of anesthesia, failure to appreciate an anesthesia risk or improper monitoring during anesthesia induction or administration Surgical errors also account for a large proportion of medical malpractice. Types of surgical malpractice include: puncturing of internal organs, operating on the wrong body part, leaving surgical instruments in the patient and improper surgical techniques. All of the fore mentioned surgical errors can cause severe damage to the patient and or death.

Finally, studies have shown that the total number of errors and deaths were greater for outpatient setting malpractice than for in patient malpractice. However, overall, malpractice that occurs within the hospital setting tends to have a more severe outcome.

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Gary Wais is a medical malpractice attorney, working for Wais Law, a medical malpractice law firm specializing in medical malpractice

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