It only takes one negligent action or small mistake by a doctor or healthcare professional to alter your life forever. When you or someone you love is a victim of medical malpractice, you may not know what to do or where to turn for help. Fortunately, the law is on your side. With the right medical malpractice legal team, you can seek justice and hold irresponsible medical professionals accountable for their actions.
At Prosper Shaked Accident Injury Attorneys, PA., our Miami medical malpractice lawyers understand how difficult it is to deal with the consequences of a medical error that could have been prevented. We understand the challenges you face now and in the future and fight aggressively to help you rebuild your life after a devastating medical injury. Our attorneys have the experience, skill, and resources necessary to hold negligent healthcare providers accountable for their actions.
If you or a loved one was seriously injured due to a healthcare provider’s improper actions or omissions, call our office for a free consultation with medical malpractice attorney Prosper Shaked.
How to Choose the Best Medical Malpractice Attorney For Your Case
As an injured patient, you may want to know how to choose the best medical malpractice lawyer. Start by seeking a personal injury lawyer with experience handling medical malpractice cases. All medical malpractice lawyers are personal injury lawyers, but not many personal injury lawyers are medical malpractice lawyers. Medical malpractice cases are unlike personal injury cases such as car accidents, slip, and falls, or dog bites.
To win a medical negligence case, your lawyer must have a superior command of law and medicine. Why? Because the defendant is likely a sophisticated physician who has spent over a decade studying at top universities, followed by years of training and experience in their field. They also have large legal teams and insurance companies fighting for them and looking to reduce their liabilities in any way possible. They will use countless medical malpractice defenses to poke holes in your case, and without a Miami medical malpractice attorney on your side, you could walk away with nothing.
When searching for a medical malpractice lawyer, you should consider hiring an attorney with specialized knowledge in your case’s specific type of medicine. The best medical malpractice lawyer for your case may be the one who has experience working with the type of medicine involved in your case.
Why Choose Our Miami Medical Malpractice Attorneys
At Prosper Shaked Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, we want the opportunity to show you what we can do and why so many injured patients choose us to represent them after a medical error. Our lawyers know how to build med mal cases that are designed to win. We know the common defenses their attorneys will use, and we attack these defenses to help our clients collect the money they need to recover.
We know you have questions after suffering a medical injury. That’s why our Miami medical malpractice attorneys want to meet with you to discuss your case. We offer free consultations to help injured patients – like you – explore the legal options available. Together, we can seek justice and hold negligent doctors, healthcare providers, hospitals, and medical groups accountable for the harm they’ve caused.
Read what some of our clients had to say about working with our law firm after an injury!
Proving Medical Malpractice in Florida
Medical malpractice occurs when a doctor or other healthcare professional deviates from the standard of care for their profession in a way that causes injury to their patient.
To prove that a doctor or healthcare professional committed medical malpractice, the injured patient must establish the following four different elements:
- Was a duty of care owed to you, the patient?
- Did the healthcare provider fail to meet the standard of care?
- Did their failure to provide you with the standard of care result in injury?
- Was the injury or damage causally related to the medical provider’s breach of the standard of care?
Each of these elements must be established in order to recover compensation in a medical malpractice lawsuit. There are many ways that this could happen, including many common errors, mistakes, or outright negligent actions that could lead to patient harm.
Types of Miami Medical Malpractice Cases that We Handle
Most medical malpractice cases in Miami are due to pure negligence or recklessness. Additionally, medical malpractice can result from inexperienced medical professionals not providing enough oversight when providing patient care.
Some of the most common types of medical malpractice cases that we handle involve the following:
- Birth injuries
- Surgical errors
- Dental Malpractice
- Ophthalmologist and Optometrist malpractice
- Anesthesia mistakes
- Emergency room delays and errors
- Prescription medication errors
- Allergic reactions to medication
- Hospital-acquired infections
- Hospital negligence
- Cardiothoracic (CT) surgical errors
- Amputation errors
- Nurse Malpractice
- Gynecological surgical malpractice
Medical Malpractice Surgical Errors
Medical malpractice often occurs in a surgical room due to negligence, improper training, lack of communication among the surgical team, and equipment failure. While not all adverse surgical outcomes result from medical malpractice, some are.
Here are some common surgical errors that can lead to medical malpractice:
- Wrong site surgery: Operating on the wrong body part, such as the wrong leg or arm.
- Wrong patient surgery: Performing surgery on the wrong patient due to misidentification.
- Anesthesia errors: An anesthesia error can occur during surgery if the anesthesiologist administers too much or too little of the medication. A study published in the Journal of Anesthesiology in 2019 found that anesthesia errors occurred in 1 in every 2000 anesthesia administrations, resulting in more than 22,000 anesthesia errors in one year alone.
- Nerve damage: Nerves can get damaged during surgery if the surgeon makes a mistake. When nerves get hurt, it can lead to a permanent disability that affects movement and feeling. Unfortunately, nerve damage often results in long-term pain and suffering, making life difficult for those affected.
- Leaving objects inside the patient: Leaving surgical tools inside a person’s body after surgery can be dangerous. They call these “never events” because they are never supposed to happen. There is no good defense against this type of medical malpractice. How common is this?
According to a study published in the Journal of Patient Safety, items such as surgical sponges, instruments, and other foreign objects are accidentally left inside patients’ bodies in approximately 1 in every 5,500 to 7,000 surgeries.
- Infection: The surgical team must take appropriate measures to prevent contamination during the procedure. Failure to properly sterilize equipment or practice effective hand-washing techniques can result in the patient developing a severe infection, potentially leading to sepsis and, in extreme cases, death.
- Perforation or puncture: One of the most common reasons for perforation during surgery is due to technical mistakes, like not being able to see properly. But, if other organs or vessels get accidentally punctured during surgery, the patient could suffer permanent damage.
- Hemorrhage: Excessive bleeding during or after surgery can cause the patient to go into shock, and if not treated quickly, blood loss can lead to death.
Medical Malpractice Birth Injuries
The birth of your child is supposed to be a happy occasion. However, when an obstetrician, nurse, or midwife makes a mistake during pregnancy, labor, and delivery, both the baby and the mother can suffer life-threatening consequences. Sadly, these errors can result in birth injuries, leading to life-long disability, impairment, and suffering.
Obstetricians, gynecologists, OB nurses, and other healthcare team members must monitor the mother and baby throughout pregnancy. If they fail to diagnose or treat serious health conditions, both the mother and baby can suffer. The most commonly misdiagnosed health conditions during pregnancy and labor include preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, placental abruption, and preterm labor.
During delivery, doctors must be careful and use delivery equipment properly. Misusing forceps, vacuum extractors, or other delivery instruments can result in trauma to the baby’s head or neck, leading to conditions such as cerebral palsy or Erb’s palsy.
Failure to monitor the mother and baby during labor and delivery properly can lead to delayed delivery, prolonged labor, or complications such as brain damage, hemorrhaging, or death.
Recognizing fetal or maternal distress is critical. When distress occurs, an emergency c-section may be needed to save the baby and mother’s life. A doctor failing to perform a timely C-section can lead to complications such as brain damage, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, or cerebral palsy.
Medical Malpractice and Medication Errors
Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists can all make serious and grave medication errors when they fail to follow proper protocols and standards of care in prescribing, dispensing, or administering medications.
Medical professionals must consider the patient’s medical history and allergies when prescribing, administering, and filling medication. Severe allergic reactions or drug interactions can occur when they don’t double-check a patient’s medical history.
All nurses, pharmacists, and healthcare professionals must be careful to prescribe and administer the right medication to the right patient. Hospitals and clinics have safety checks in place to prevent giving the wrong medication to the wrong patient. However, dangerous and life-threatening medication errors can occur when overworked or understaffed medical teams bypass these safety checks.
Miscommunication between healthcare providers often occurs on busy units and during shift changes. When miscommunication leads to a medication error, your attorney may want to explore whether the hospital’s understaffing or undertraining of staff led to this error occurring.
Misdiagnosis and Delayed Diagnosis
When a physician misinterprets diagnostic studies, orders incorrect tests, or fails to order the proper tests, it can lead to medical malpractice. Misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis can result in severe consequences such as chronic medical conditions, long-term illnesses, and even fatalities.
Some of the most frequently misdiagnosed medical conditions and illnesses include:
- Parkinson’s disease
- Lupus
- Fibromyalgia
- Lyme disease
- Celiac disease
- Multiple sclerosis
- Chronic fatigue syndrome
- Compartment syndrome
- Heart attacks
- Stroke
- Cancer
If you suspect your doctor has misdiagnosed or failed to diagnose your cancer or illness, you must speak to a medical malpractice attorney to represent you. Your Florida med mal lawyer can evaluate your case and determine whether there is a valid legal claim. They can use their knowledge and experience to identify potential malpractice and advise you on the best course of action.
Your medical malpractice attorney will also have the resources and connections necessary to investigate and gather evidence to build a strong case. They can review medical records, consult experts, and interview witnesses to support your claim.
Who Is Responsible For Medical Malpractice Damages?
Medical malpractice is often associated with doctors making mistakes that result in patient injuries, but other healthcare professionals can also be responsible for such incidents. Negligence from nurses, medical technicians, doctor assistants, and nurse practitioners can harm patients.
In some cases, medical malpractice may not directly involve a doctor, and responsibility may lie with the institution or one of its employees through vicarious liability. Moreover, additional parties could be responsible for medical malpractice injuries besides a negligent doctor.
To maximize compensation for damages caused by medical malpractice, you need a lawyer on your side who will investigate and identify all liable parties while filing a lawsuit.
What Type of Compensation Can the Victim of Medical Malpractice Recover?
Victims of medical malpractice in Miami and across the state of Florida have the legal right to recover the following:
- Past and future medical expenses
- Lost wages
- Pain and suffering
- Mental anguish
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Inconvenience
- Disfigurement
- Loss of companionship
While economic damages like medical expenses and lost wages are easily calculated, non-economic damages such as pain and suffering are much more difficult to quantify.
How Can a Miami Medical Malpractice Lawyer Help Maximize Your Claim?
A medical malpractice lawyer at Prosper Shaked Accident Injury Attorneys PA can be valuable in figuring out damages and compensation after a medical error causes an injury. When you hire the right legal team to fight for you and your rights, you can focus on your recovery and rebuilding your life. While you focus on what matters most to you, your attorneys will be hard at work fighting to maximize your medical malpractice claim.
Here are some ways that our Miami medical malpractice lawyers can help:
- Gathering evidence: We can help gather evidence such as medical records, witness statements, and expert testimony to support your case and prove the extent of the damages. Gathering evidence isn’t easy for injured patients. That’s why we take that burden off your shoulders from the start.
- Calculating damages: Our medical malpractice attorney will calculate all your damages by considering medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and other non-economic damages.
- Negotiating with insurance companies: We know exactly how to negotiate with insurance companies to ensure you receive fair compensation for your injuries and losses.
- Representing you in court: If a settlement cannot be reached, our Miami medical malpractice lawyer will represent you in court and fight for your rights to compensation.
- Providing legal advice and guidance: We can provide you with legal advice and guidance throughout the entire process, from filing a claim to receiving compensation. This means you can rest easier knowing your legal rights are protected.
How Long Does a Person have to Sue for Medical Malpractice in Florida?
Unfortunately, most victims of medical malpractice do not realize they generally have a limited two-year period to bring a claim. This two-year time period is known as the statute of limitations period. There are certain exceptions to the two-year statute of limitations for Miami medical malpractice claims.
Even if you believe you missed the deadline for filing your claim, we still want to talk to you. There are many exceptions to the statute of limitations; sometimes, you have more time than you think. Don’t assume you can’t file a medical malpractice lawsuit without first speaking to our attorneys.
Contact Our Miami Medical Malpractice Attorneys
Medical malpractice is a complex field that is extremely difficult to navigate without the help of an experienced attorney. At Prosper Shaked Accident Injury Attorneys, we have spent years representing individuals and their family members. We make it our top priority to help them recover from negligent healthcare providers.
Like most medical malpractice attorneys in Florida, we work on a contingency fee. We offer free consultations, pay the upfront costs of a lawsuit, and only get our attorney’s fees paid after we recover compensation for you. This means there is no upfront cost or financial risk to working with us.
If you or a loved one suffered serious injuries or died due to negligent medical treatment, contact Prosper Shaked for a free and confidential consultation by dialing (305) 694-2676.
Although our office is in Miami, we successfully represent clients throughout the State of Florida. During your free case evaluation, we will thoroughly review the facts and circumstances of your case and provide you with valuable insight regardless of whether you decide to hire our law firm. We stand committed to protecting residents of Miami-Dade County who have been wronged by healthcare providers. Learn how we can dedicate our attention and years of experience to you and your family today.