Emergency Room Medical Malpractice

How many times have you or a loved one been in dire need of immediate care and gone to an emergency room only to be forced to wait in an overcrowded waiting room as your condition worsens until you are finally seen by a physician who provides you with inadequate assistance?

It seems everyone has a similar emergency room horror story. Fortunately, for many the emergency room’s poor care did not result in tragedy. However, there are hundreds of cases annually throughout America where a patient sustains serious injury or even death due to emergency room medical malpractice.

While it is easy to pity the overworked and understaffed facilities commonly plaguing emergency rooms, when their negligence and misconduct causes the injury or death of a loved one, there are no excuses.

How Emergency Room Malpractice Occurs

With front desk staff employees being bombarded with patients and physicians treating those in need of help like statistics instead of human beings, it is easy to realize how emergency room errors occur.

The most common emergency room medical malpractice lawsuits are filed due to misdiagnosis as physicians fail to thoroughly investigate a patient’s condition. Not far behind is a physician’s failure to diagnose, which can result from the overcrowded nature of emergency rooms, a physician’s sleep deprivation, or a number of other factors.

Other common emergency room errors that result in malpractice lawsuits stem from:

• Anesthesia malpractice
• Surgical error
• Improper laboratory tests
• Failure to administer the right medication
• Delayed diagnosis, as patients wait endlessly in emergency room waiting areas and their condition deteriorates
• Contaminated blood transfusion
• EMT and paramedic neglect

Injuries Caused by Emergency Room Malpractice

The stories associated with emergency room malpractice lawsuits are horrific, such as a patient being prematurely discharged only to have their appendix explode or to suffer a heart attack in the car ride home.

In the worst scenarios, the negligence of an emergency room results in wrongful death. Otherwise, common injuries due to emergency room employees’ misconduct include:

• Stroke
• Brain aneurysm
• Pulmonary embolism
• Internal bleeding or hemorrhaging
• Appendicitis

Proving Negligence

Proving negligence in emergency medical malpractice cases is difficult. Even with the most skilled and experienced attorneys, many roadblocks impede the process, such as:

• Employees not wishing to serve as witnesses against coworkers
• Emergency rooms destroying evidence when fearing a lawsuit
• Proving that emergency room employees were negligent in their duties and failed to provide a patient with the standard of care in keeping with other professionals in their field is an arduous process