The healthcare system exists to protect people and help them in any way possible. Whichever disease or ailment you might have, you expect the finest service and professionalism from the different hospitals you visit and physicians you meet. Unfortunately, there is a significant percentage of medical negligence in the healthcare sector. It could be from the nurses, medical interns, or the doctors themselves. This is why it’s good to be ready if it ever happens.
Read on to learn more about the steps that you should take if you’ve experienced any type of negligence from your doctor.
Finding a Better Doctor
The first step that you should do is to find another doctor. Your health and safety are the priority here. Wasting too much time and effort on fixing the problem without taking care of yourself will not be worth it. You should find professional and competent doctors with the right traits and experience which makes you comfortable. Any medical negligence victim would not be aware of how severe the mistakes were. You should focus on having those mistakes taken care of and fixed to be sure that you’re safe. Starting new treatments to undo the damages is crucial to prevent any more complications from happening again.
Get Legal Advice
You will need to get legal advice to understand the situation fully and figure out which step to do next. A decent malpractice attorney can explain and simplify the situation for you because medical malpractice cases can be quite complex, especially with the unique laws in Chicago. In this blog post, “Medical Malpractice Attorneys in Chicago,” the people at Curcio Law Offices state that any medical professional, regardless of how established they are will be held accountable for their mistakes. If you physically can’t discuss with your legal advisors or lawyers your situation, then you need a close loved one to do it for you. You must disclose every detail and never leave any piece of information out. This will help your malpractice case in the future.
Ask For Your Medical Records
You should ask for your medical records because they will have all the details of what happened in regards to your treatment, especially the mistakes and misdiagnosis. The records are instrumental in your future malpractice case because it will help you get the evidence you need to prove the doctor’s negligence. It will show all the treatments, medical history, tests, and decisions made throughout your time with that specific doctor. This will be your key to a huge claim because it will show every step in detail and prove every mistake that occurred was ignored and unattended to. It will show how your doctor failed to diagnose you properly and how you got prescribed something that could potentially harm you because of the side effects. Just remember to ask for these records before you file for a claim to prevent any type of tampering or attempt to change the details within the records.
Don’t Contact the Hospital’s Administration
You mustn’t contact the hospital’s administration if you suspect that your doctor is being negligent or if you’ve already gone through different situations that prove it. Whether it’s unnecessary surgeries, multiple surgical errors, incorrect dosages, misreading lab results, failure to order correct tests, or lack of communication. Even though contacting the hospital’s administrators for recourse is your first instinct, you shouldn’t make that decision because of the statute of limitations and the time frame. If you let them know that you’re going to take them to court, by the time it becomes official and the claim is filed, it would be too late. This is because your first verbal and written response to them will be considered as a pretrial notice. The judge would be forced to deny your claim this way. Make sure you don’t make any decisions without your attorney’s consent.
Never Disclose any Information on Social Media
During this tough time, you should never disclose any information about the negligence case or what happened to you on social media. Anything you say might be used against you by the doctor’s lawyer and it’s very easy to do so online by searching for social media posts. This can ruin your case and your claim might not go as planned. Make sure you don’t give anything away that the hospital or the physician’s attorneys could use to their advantage in court. If you want to discuss your problems, then you should keep it strictly within your family and close friends. In some cases, going to therapy can be a safer option because of the doctor/patient confidentiality.
Write Down Notes
It would be wise to write down notes or you could keep a journal to save every detail of how you feel and what was ailing you. You should mention everything from symptoms, time stamps, the impact these symptoms have on your life, and if it caused you to take too many sick leaves from work. This information is very important and can be used in court as evidence. It will fully support the medical records you have because it would prove that there weren’t any lies or exaggerations. You must write down these notes every day to show the judge the full extent of your doctor’s errors and how it changed your life to the point that you can’t lead a normal life anymore. Be sure to give these notes or the journal to your attorney to make sure that it’s viable for your case.
It’s terrible and beyond an explanation of how bad a patient feels when they’ve experienced this type of medical incompetence. We all hope that we would get the best medical assistance possible, but the medical field isn’t immune to mistakes. Whether it was intentional or not, medical negligence should not be tolerated and you have rights that can protect you. You should get all the compensation you deserve if it was proven that your doctor was negligent. You just need to research and learn more about how you can handle this situation, what to do when you suspect some incompetence, and who do you turn to when you’ve been a victim of medical negligence.