Quick Read On Medical Malpractice, by Rich Hechter, Attorney with Morris Law Group, Edina, MN 952-832-2000

There are many areas of law an attorney can "fake" his or her way through. There are lots of attorneys who try to do car accident, criminal law and divorce on the fly. Medical Malpractice is one area an attorney can NOT learn on the fly. The fact that there are very few attorneys who actually exist and do practice in the area of medical malpractice is proof enough. You will see very few attorneys advertise they do medical malpractice.

The reason why medical malpractice cases are tough is because of the very high legal requirements imposed upon attorneys, by legislative statutes, for evening getting the lawsuit into the front door of the courthouse.

In virtually all states with the possible exception of Wisconsin, and including my state of Minnesota, in order to even file a lawsuit alleging medical malpractice, the attorney and the client (patient/victim) must first find an "expert" witness who will attest under-oath, by way of affidavit, that he or she has carefully reviewed the entire medical history of the patient and finds the target defendant doctor was negligent. The expert required by law has to be of the same caliber of expert to which the defendant claims to be. So, if the defendant is an Oral Surgeon, your expert, needs to be an oral surgeon. If the defendant is an orthopedic surgeon, your expert must be a licensed and board certified orthopedic surgeon.

The expert hired to help the attorney and patient must expressly state, in minute detail, what the "standard of care is" for doctors concerning the area the defendant doctor treated the patient (client) for; how the defendant doctor deviated from the accepted standard or norm for care; and how the breach of the standard of care directly caused harm and injury to the client. To put it simply, you need an expert doctor to explain what should have been done in terms of the care for the patient, what was done, or not done which demonstrates the defendant doctor's negligence or carelessness with the case; and how this carelessness or mistake cost the client/patient in terms of injuries and problems.

Moreover, most all experts will want handsome fees for doing these case reviews and affidavits. You are lucky if you can find such an expert who will charge less than $5,000.00 for this. The risk is that you hire an expert, he or she reviews the file, you pay the expert $5,000.00 or more, and the expert then determines there was no negligence. What is hard for many to understand is that a bad outcome form a medical procedure is not automatically proof of neglience. It's the practice of medicine, not the "perfect" of medicine. Finally, it is difficult to even find one doctor who is willing to call out one of his colleagues, even in the most egregious case of malpractice.

The most common types of medical malpractice cases are missed diagnoses and unintended injuries made by a surgeon. Examples here would be failing to catch breast cancer on an MRI and puncturing the colon when doing a hysterectomy.

This is NOT legal advice. Always call an attorney to get proper answers. This post is for general education only