Akron Medical Malpractice Attorneys

Fighting for injured victims and families

Medical professionals are trusted to make decisions on our behalf—often in just a few minutes. We trust our medical professionals to take our health histories and the most current research into account when deciding what course of treatment is best for us. Unfortunately, many medical professionals make poor decisions that harm patients. When medical professionals are negligent, they must be held accountable. At The Eisen Law Firm, our Akron medical malpractice attorneys understand medical negligence laws and know how to pursue these complicated claims.

What are the elements of a medical negligence claim?

Medical negligence claims come with various legal hurdles that claimants and their attorneys must overcome. Fortunately, with an experienced medical negligence attorney, claimants are more likely to recover damages.

There are three primary elements in a medical negligence claim:

• The medical professional owed a duty to the patient;
• The medical professional breached this duty; and
• Due to this breach, the patient suffered damages.

All three of these elements must be proven for a medical negligence claim to proceed in court. If one of the elements is missing, the claim will fail and, the injured patient will not be able to recover damages.

Proving that the medical professional owed a duty to the patient is typically the least challenging element in a medical negligence claim. In most cases, before undergoing medical treatment, the patient signs a consent form agreeing to medical care, creating a doctor-patient relationship. In emergency situations, consent is often implied. By providing medical care to the patient, the medical professional assumes a duty to that patient—the duty to keep the patient free from unnecessary harm.

The breach of the duty to the patient is more challenging to prove. A medical expert must be consulted to determine the appropriate standard of care in the same situation. The expert must clearly explain how the medical professional breached the standard of care and thus breached his or her duty to the patient. For example, if a surgeon failed to use properly sterilized surgical instruments, a medical expert qualified in the same or similar surgeries would explain the steps surgeons must take to ensure they use clean tools and how the defendant surgeon in the case failed to do so.

The patient’s damages are also usually a highly-contested matter in a medical negligence claim. The patient must show that any damages claimed are directly related to the incident. Consider the example above, where a surgeon used unsanitary tools to conduct a surgery. The patient may have developed an infection that required additional surgeries, numerous medications, and time off of work to recover. The patient would need to submit objective proof of these damages to support the claim, including for example, medical records, prescription bills, and notes from the patient’s employer.