Preventable medical mistakes and infections are responsible for about 200,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to an investigation by the Hearst media corporation. The report comes 10 years after the Institute of Medicine’s “To Err Is Human” analysis, which found that 44,000 to 98,000 people were dying annually due to these errors and called for the medical community and government to cut that number in half by 2004.
The precise number of these deaths is still unknown because many states lack a standard or mandatory reporting system for injuries due to medical mistakes. The investigative team gathered disparate medical records, legal documents, personnel files and reports and analyzed databases to arrive at its estimate
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There are a number of circumstances in which it can clearly be argued that a medical professional has breached his or her duty of care. These include:
* Erroneously or belatedly diagnosing illness or injury
* Failure to take action following test results
* Mistake in performance of an operation or procedure
* Error in administration of medication
* Sub-standard follow up care
* Failure to advise a patient of the risks associated with procedures prior to their administration.
It is a medical negligence case. How a doctors can do this?