If you or a loved one are injured, sick, or need a life-changing procedure, you contact the best medical professionals around, expecting to receive the highest standard of care. But sometimes, medical care can fall short of standard expectations. However, that doesn’t always mean the substandard care was intentional.
Medical malpractice, or medical errors involving obvious or discreet intent, differs from medical negligence, where there was an obvious medical mistake without intent behind it.
Consider a scenario where you have a broken bone, but your doctor never ordered an x-ray. They should have ordered imaging for the broken bone, but their failure to do so made this a medical negligence case. However, if your broken bone wasn’t properly treated because of the failure to order imaging, and you experienced further damage and other issues, that would be considered medical malpractice.
Patients can be harmed when medical providers make errors, make improper decisions, or are negligent in both diagnoses and procedures. Regardless of what happened, you didn’t receive an acceptable standard of care, which could leave you with a heavy financial burden, post-treatment issues, and anxiety about the situation.
When you or someone you love is the victim of a medical error, the difference between medical malpractice and medical negligence may seem like words. To an attorney, however, there is a significant difference. Knowing the difference between medical malpractice and medical negligence helps determine the type of outcome you can get for your case.
What is Medical Malpractice?
When it comes to medical malpractice, the first thing you need to look for is intent. The intent in the case of medical malpractice is defined as an action that a doctor knows would cause potential harm to the patient.
In the scenario mentioned above, the doctor that didn’t order x-rays was initially negligent in missing the broken bone. But when the doctor caused further damage with improper treatment and care, medical malpractice occurred. As a result, your doctor failed to uphold the standard of care guaranteed by the healthcare system, leaving you in a worse situation than you were already in.
Your doctor has the knowledge and is in a position to provide the proper standard of care. However, the intent of breaching that proper standard of care defines medical malpractice in a way that medical negligence does not. While this intent might not have been malicious in nature, the intent still reflects the failure to meet the standards of the healthcare system.
In a medical malpractice case, a doctor or hospital has the strong backing of the healthcare system’s insurance company. Any malpractice accusation puts their career, the hospital’s reputation, and the insurance companies involved at risk, so they will not willingly admit fault, often drawing out medical malpractice cases.
When you enlist the services of a medical malpractice attorney, it’s their responsibility to prove that your doctor deviated from the proper standard of care for your broken bone and that you suffered further damages. This will be key in getting the best outcome for your case.
What is Medical Negligence?
Medical negligence claims do not rely on intent but rather on the action (or missing action) by the doctor who made an honest mistake that resulted in further damages or harm.
If your doctor didn’t order an x-ray when you broke your bone as they should have because they honestly didn’t think it was broken, that does not show intent. With the intent not there, this would be considered medical negligence.
In our scenario, the intent isn’t there in that the doctor didn’t intentionally ignore the patient’s injury. Instead, they didn’t order imaging because they genuinely believed the injury wasn’t as serious as it actually was. If they had known the extent of the injury, they wouldn’t have allowed further harm or injury to occur.
Turn to Attorney Steve Newman for Your Medical Malpractice or Personal Injury Case
Licensed to practice law in state and federal courts in both New York and New Jersey, Attorney Steve Newman has represented clients in all 50 states for over three decades and is prepared to represent you in winning your case.
Practicing law in medical malpractice, personal injury, construction litigation, and more, Steve Newman utilizes an extensive network of board-certified physicians to analyze whether medical malpractice occurred.
Contact the Law Offices of Steve Newman today for an attorney committed to you and your claim.
