Medical Malpractice in Pediatrics: What Every Parent Should Know
Your child means the world to you. You do everything to make sure that he has everything he needs to live healthy, safely, comfortably and most of all, happy. When a child suffers from a serious injury, disability, or even death due to a medical error, it’s understandable that a parent would feel rage against the doctor who committed the mistake. Every parent should know about medical malpractice in pediatrics. Every parent should be aware that even topnotch doctors can commit the worst mistakes in the field of medicine that they are supposed to be experts of. Every parent should learn that medical malpractice or negligence is something that they can fight against.
Pediatric malpractice can happen anytime. It can involve negligence in neonatal care or failure to diagnose a chronic disease in teenage children. Most of these cases are difficult and complicated. As you can imagine, the doctor and the hospital will not be too accommodating when it comes to offering you with the information you need to file the claim. They may distort some facts or choose not to disclose pertinent information regarding the case. It’s possible that they will not explain truthfully or properly what really happened that caused the injury, disability or death of the child.
Because of this, parents should be aware of what can be included in a valid pediatric malpractice claim. These are complications from surgery, mistakes in the administration of anesthesia, misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose a disease, avoidable birth trauma, pediatric burn injury cases, negligence during the postoperative recovery, errors in nursing, infections, failure to diagnose infections, and errors in prescription. As with any other medical practitioner, it’s also possible for a pediatrician to commit varied mistakes when providing care and treatment to your child. But those that cause the most common cases of pediatric malpractice are failure to diagnose or misdiagnosis of pneumonia, infection, meningitis, appendicitis and errors in prescription.
If it happens that you suspect of medical malpractice in the way your child’s treatment and care were handled, you must collect and review all of the child’s medical records, evidence, testing reports, and evidence. All these are necessary for filing the malpractice claim. You’ll have better chances of recovering compensation that your child rightfully deserves if you are equipped with complete documents. Since complete and accurate records are to be kept by the physician, hospital or medical facility where you child was given treatment, you can ask them for these documents.
Right now, there is no special area of law that addresses malpractice injury in the field of pediatric. But the medical malpractice law that applies to the adult also applies to a child. A lawyer who’s experienced in malpractice law is qualified to handle such case. If you have a personal injury attorney and lawyer, he/she can refer you to a smart and efficient medical malpractice lawyer. It’s of utmost importance to find a good lawyer to back you up through every step of the way.
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