The very nature of the medical system assumes that you, as a patient, are likely in the most vulnerable condition when you submit yourself or your loved one to treatment. Medicine as it is practiced in the United States today, by design or by default, places the patient in a position of trust of the physician, the medical staff, pharmacists and other medical professionals. However, as a patient you have every right to demand and receive proper, safe and proactive treatment.
Our firm is among the leading medical malpractice lawyers in Illinois, and we understand that this relationship between patient and medical professional can be key to positive outcomes when the medical professional is worthy of trust, is vigilant in his or her conduct, is open to the latest scientific information and has the highest respect for his patients.
This high expectation is sometimes not achieved for myriad reasons including but not limited to: economics, ineffective communication, and human error stemming from simple error, inflated egos, fatigue, disorganization, mistakes in record keeping and in the most egregious cases, unprofessionalism.
The following types of medical malpractice cases are a few of the categories of cases that Keefe, Keefe & Unsell, P,C. have experience in investigating, exposing and securing compensation and damages for our clients and their families.
Medical Misdiagnosis
When a doctor fails to interpret the symptoms and other indicators of an underlying disease the outcome can rarely be completely reversed. Failure to properly diagnose life-threatening conditions, such as in the case of a failure to diagnose cancer, can lead to precious time being lost when life-saving efforts could have been made.
Misdiagnosis can go the other direction as well. In our line of work, it’s not uncommon to hear of patients who were mistakenly given a cancer diagnosis such as breast cancer, lung cancer or prostate cancer and subsequent cancer treatments when none were warranted. The outcome of either type of cancer misdiagnosis are never without severe consequences for the patient and their family.
Surgical Errors
We’ve all heard stories of doctors or surgical teams leaving operating tools inside a patient, performing wrong site surgery by amputating an incorrect limb due to incorrect site marking or other medical mixups. There are a lot of opportunities for miscommunication or medical errors to occur between diagnosis and when a patient emerges for better or worse from an operating room.
It’s the duty of the medical staff to deliver a professional standard of care that predicts and prevents these types of potentially catastrophic errors from happening. When rules are skirted or ignored and accidents happen it is our duty as your legal team to dig into your case to determine if medical negligence occurred. You need to speak to a med mal attorney near me.
Failure to Treat
When your doctor correctly diagnoses your medical condition but fails to follow through with the proper standard of care and treatment it must be determined if he or she is at fault for failing to take the correct course of action.
Often times a proper diagnosis at the early stage offers opportunities for proper treatment that can stop the condition from becoming worse. Sometimes disease can actually be reversed through proper treatment. When these opportunities are missed by discharging a patient too soon or failing to follow up with proper medical care, conditions become worse and the window of opportunity to heal closes.
Prescription or Pharmacy Error
We’ve previously discussed the problems that occur with alarming frequencies at the well-known pharmacies we all trust to dispense our life-saving medications. Pharmacies put people at risk more an more as pharmacists are expected to work long shifts and to dispense prescriptions without the proper training, processes or under stressful working conditions.
Birth Injury
Some of the most heartbreaking cases we encounter are those involving birth injuries including injuries or improper delivery processes that lead to nerve damage, brain damage and other forms of birth trauma.
Between the first ob-gyn visit and the time a child is delivered through the birth canal a lot can go wrong. Doctors are trained to prevent these problems. Unfortunately, when a doctor is negligent or mistaken along this very important birth process the harm can be catastrophic and irreversible.
A child harmed by improper medical treatment in utero or at any point during pre-natal development or at the time of delivery is not given the fighting chance to gain strength to continue developing properly. Errors early in life often set the tone of disability that will shadow a person throughout his or her entire life. The medical bills and tragedy of a life harmed so early are staggering and insurmountable.
Handling Your Medical Malpractice or Misdiagnosis Lawsuit
As with most other issues involving the law involving your health or life, medical malpractice cases are subject to statutes of limitations and other rules set forth by the legal system. It is best to contact an attorney with a proven track record in handling these types of cases sooner rather than later.
We at Keefe, Keefe & Unsell, P.C. look forward to discussing the details of your case with you. Please use the information form on this page to tell us more about your case, or call us at: (618) 236-2221