When doctors and other healthcare personnel fail to provide appropriate treatment, injuries can become worse, fail to heal, and result in serious injury and death. Failing to provide appropriate treatment includes:
- failing to accurately diagnose an illness or injury
- failing to refer you to a specialist
- failing to properly treat and medicate the illness or injury
- taking a cast or sling off too soon
- under medicating or overmedicating
- prescribing the wrong medication
- further injuring the patient
Failing to provide appropriate treatment can be medical malpractice if the doctor or other staff can be found negligent. Negligent means that the doctor didn’t perform to the best of his/her abilities, and instead acted in a rash, uncaring and ignorant manner. Being negligent means that although the doctor was aware of or capable of finding better treatments, better instruments and better medications, he/she chose to treat the patient with less suitable or blatantly incorrect or inadequate methods.
Failure to provide appropriate treatment can be devastating. For example, if a doctor fails to appropriately treat cancer, the cancer can worsen, resulting in the patient’s death. If a doctor fails to appropriately treat an infection, the infection can spread and worsen, leading to amputation or death. If a doctor fails to appropriately resuscitate or anesthetize a patient, the patient can suffer brain injury, fall into a coma, and die.
If your doctor fails to provide you with appropriate treatment, you should contact a personal injury lawyer as soon as possible.
Tags:
appropriate treatment,
dental malpractice,
failed treatment,
hospital negligence,
medical malpractice,
medical negligence,
misdiagnosis,
wrong treatment
