Medical Malpractice
Connecticut Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice occurs when a doctor, nurse or another healthcare provider’s negligence or recklessness leads to an injury, death, or worsened illness. Unfortunately, medical malpractice is one of the leading causes of serious injuries and deaths in the United States.
At The Berkowitz Law Firm, we understand that medical mistakes are devastating events and can lead to a lifetime of disability and hardship. Our experienced legal team serves as tireless advocates for injured patients and their families and aggressively fights to ensure all responsible parties are held accountable for their actions.
Traumatic Injuries Caused by Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice and negligence can occur in a variety of scenarios, ranging from wrong site surgery to misreading of x-rays or other medical test results. Despite the cause, mistakes made by medical professionals often lead to irreversible, traumatic injuries including:
- Paralysis
- Birth injuries such as Cerebral Palsy
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Advancement in the severity of a medical condition such as cancer
- Heart attack, or heart failure
- Organ damage
- Nerve damage
- Surgical infections
- Death
Sadly, 10 percent of all hospital patients are harmed by medical mistakes, many of whom never recover. The experienced medical malpractice attorneys at our firm are dedicated to fighting for such victims and their families and have successfully recovered millions of dollars in compensation for our clients.
Click here to contact a medical malpractice attorney with The Berkowitz Law Firm in Stamford, Connecticut or Danbury, Connecticut today.
Areas of Medical Malpractice
- Hospital Mistakes
- Hospital Negligence
- Surgical Injuries
- Medical Negligence
- Elder Abuse
- Birth Injuries
- Medication Errors
- Wrongful Death
- Improper Medication
- Improper/Bad X-rays
- Blood Transfusions
- Failure to Diagnose
- Brain Damage
- Cerebral Palsy
- Birth Injuries
- Spinal Cord Injuries
- Erb's Palsy
- Cancer Misdiagnosis
Hospital Mistakes
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that one in 10 hospital patients are victims of preventable medical mistakes. Announcing an initiative to create a “culture of safety” in health care, the WHO said improving patient safety in clinics and hospitals is the best way to protect advances made in health care. Despite advances made in medical science and in industrialized countries, hospital mistakes are still, shockingly, one of the leading causes of deaths in the U.S., taking more lives than auto accidents, breast cancer or AIDS.
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Hospital Negligence
Every year, tens of thousands of cases of hospital deaths occur because of malpractice and negligence. Malpractice can include both improper treatment of a patient and the absence of appropriate treatment to occur. The World Health Organization’s latest figures cite one in 10 hospital patients are victims of preventable medical mistakes, including 10 percent of hospital patients in the world’s industrialized countries suffering from medical mistakes that can lead to serious disability and even death. Some doctors and hospital staff recognizing a critical mistake or hospital negligence occurred will choose not to report their inappropriate treatment because of fear of repercussion.
Surgical Injuries
Surgical injuries, also referred to as surgical accidents and mistakes, can lead to serious disability and death. Some of the most common causes of surgical injuries include wrong site surgery, wrong surgical procedure, wrong patient surgery and leaving surgical instruments inside a patient’s body. Surgical injuries range from mild to severe and can have long-term affects, which can be extremely costly and cause life long physical hardship and emotional pain.
Medical Negligence
Instead of blaming patients and attorneys for being “overly litigious,” consumer groups believe changing the environment medical staff works in can help reduce medical negligence. As the system currently stands, doctors or hospital staff that realize critical instances of medical negligence has occurred will sometimes fear their jobs, reputations and legal action and will allow it to go unreported. These instances of medical negligence can lead to serious and sometimes fatal results. One in 10 hospital patients are harmed by preventable medical mistakes, and Dr. Gary Null’s Death By Medicine study estimates the total annual of deaths caused by conventional medicine in the U.S. to be around 750,000.
Birth Injuries
Birth injuries can be extremely devastating, sometimes causing debilitating injuries for life. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that preventable medical mistakes harm one in 10 hospital patients. Medical errors can cause birth injuries that lead to serious and sometimes deadly effects. Medical mistakes do not discriminate, affecting patients of all ages, genders and ethnicity. The medical mistakes can affect people immediately, in the form of birth injuries, or later on in any stage of life. The ability to file birth injuries claims can help allow victims to recover monetary damages and better prevent future birth injuries cases from being suffered.
Medication Errors
Medication errors can occur in any medical environment at any stage of the medical treatment process. The Journal of the American Medical Association estimates 100,000 plus people die every year because of the use of prescription drugs. Many medication errors are easily preventable, the result of sloppy note taking, illegible handwriting, similar packaged drugs, and some patients are given too high or too low a dose, the wrong medication or not medication at all when it is necessary. Regardless of if the medication errors were the result of administration, tracking, prescribing, transcribing or dispensing the prescription, medication errors can be fatal, contributing to deaths of more lives taken from car accidents, breast cancer or AIDS.
Wrongful Death
More than half the states in the United States have so far passed legislation addressing medical malpractice, with many of the states placing caps on jury awards for pain and suffering. For victims of the most severe medical malpractice especially, including wrongful death, caps have further injured individuals and families most tragically affected by medical mistakes. One in every 10 hospital patients, according to the World Health Organization, is injured because of preventable medical mistakes. Though some margin of human error cannot be avoided, the medical errors taking lives and severely injuring patients impacts so many Americans every year that modern health care is the leading cause of death in the United States.
Improper Medication
In addition to the 100,000 plus people killed because of improper medication, the World Health Organization’s latest statistics indicate preventable medical mistakes harm 10 percent of hospital patients. The magnitude medical errors and improper medication mistakes has on the United States is better understood when realizing modern health care is the leading cause of death in this nation, taking the lives of more people than cancer. Improper medication errors can be the result of illegible doctor handwriting, sloppy note taking, confused drug names or any other error. The failure to implement a more up to date way of keeping medical records in time with technological advances has been in part blamed for easily preventable improper medication errors.
Improper/ Bad X-Rays
X-ray technology allows a doctor to see through human tissue so that broken bones, cavities, foreign objects and other things can be easily viewed. The use of a modified x-ray can allow doctors to view softer tissue. An extremely important diagnostic tool used to identify complications, improper/ bad x-rays can cause serious conditions to be overlooked. The inability to immediately identify problems and complications because of the improper/ bad x-rays will not allow treatment methods to instantly begin, thus worsening the condition that can sometimes lead to other complications.
Blood Transfusions
Blood transfusions are sometimes necessary for trauma victims, heart surgery, organ transplants and patients receiving treatment for cancer, leukemia or other diseases. When a blood transfusion is needed for the patient’s survival, the hospital will get a blood sample from the person who is going to receive the blood product to be typed and screened for proteins to match against the blood to be transfused. There have been cases where the blood product is not properly typed and screened or the wrong blood is transferred despite properly typed and screened samples. Improper blood transfusions can result in a transfusion reaction that can result in severe permanent injury and, in some cases, death.
Failure to Diagnose
A medical doctor or medical staff that fails to timely recognize, properly diagnose and appropriately treat a patient’s condition and/or complication may have committed a failure to diagnose, which is sometimes considered malpractice depending on the situation. Differing from performing medical mistakes, the failure to diagnose can also have serious and deadly results. It is often crucial that a disease or condition be identified and immediately treated in order to prevent it from quickly worsening and causing much greater problems. Failure to diagnose can mean the difference between wellness and serious complications and even death.
Russ Berkowitz has been selected as a 2010 Super Lawyer...
$4,750,000.00 medical malpractice award on behalf of a child who sustained brain damage as a result of a hospital’s negligent airway management.
$9,000,000.00 medical malpractice recovery against an obstetrician and a hospital whose failure to timely deliver the infant plaintiff, despite signs of fetal distress, left her severely brain damaged.
$6,100,000.00 settlement against a hospital and two physicians on behalf of a client who sustained permanent paralysis.
Joanne Sheehan recently settled a medical malpractice case for $1,800,000.00 against an optometrist who caused a female plaintiff to sustain permanent vision loss in both eyes following the improper administration of ophthalmic steroids despite said optometrist’s knowledge of the plaintiff’s history of steroid induced eye pressure.
$4,000,000.00 medical malpractice verdict
$2,600,000.00 wrongful death verdict
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