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Potentially lethal medical mistakes are too common

On Behalf of | Apr 18, 2019 | Medical Malpractice

According to a recent report, medical malpractice is the third leading cause of death in the United States. The report suggests that residents of Georgia who go to doctors and other medical professionals to get healthier may actually be putting their health at risk.

A lot of the most frequent acts of medical malpractice involve surgical errors. For instance, operating on the wrong person or the wrong part of the body are relatively common occurrences in the world of medicine, as is leaving medical equipment or other foreign objects inside a surgery patient. Some of the more serious and common mistakes involve confusion about breathing tubes or other important tubes.

Another source of mistakes occurs regarding the use of medication. Sometimes, doctors do not prescribe the right drug to treat a patient’s symptoms, and the patient takes a drug that makes their condition worse. In other cases, a patient may get the wrong dose of the right medicine.

Still other errors happen because of poor communication. For instance, sometimes doctors may not challenge the recommendations of another physician even if they believe the other doctor is mistaken. In other cases of poor communication, a doctor may not thoroughly vet a patient’s symptoms before making a diagnosis or may not explore a patient’s medical history, leading to the possibility of a misdiagnosis or over-medicating the patient.

Just because these mistakes are relatively common does not mean that doctors have a free pass to make them. Patients and their families who are injured by these serious errors may be able to pursue compensation from a negligent doctor.