Chicago Doctor Error Attorney
Patients should be able to trust that their doctors will not make mistakes that will cause harm, yet medical errors are a common source of injury. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, medical errors account for more than 250,000 deaths every year, and they are currently the third-leading cause of death among Americans. If you visited a doctor for a routine check-up, to get a diagnosis, or to receive treatment and your doctor made a mistake that caused harm to you, it is important to find out more about filing a lawsuit. An experienced Chicago doctor error attorney at our firm can provide you with more information about medical negligence claims in Illinois.
Common Types of Chicago Doctor Error Claims
Given that doctors provide a wide range of services to patients and work across many different medical fields, errors or mistakes can also vary widely. If you have any concerns about doctor error or believe that your physician made a mistake that resulted in an injury, you should seek advice from an experienced Chicago doctor error lawyer who can help you with a medical malpractice lawsuit. The following are common examples of types of doctor errors that can occur in healthcare settings across Chicago and for which you should learn more about filing a negligence claim:
- Medication mistakes, which can involve prescribing the wrong medication, prescribing the incorrect amount of a medication, prescribing a medication that will have a harmful interaction with a drug the patient currently takes, or prescribing a medication that the patient is allergic to;
- Anesthesia errors, which can involve administering the incorrect dosage of anesthesia during a surgical procedure or during childbirth through an epidural;
- Diagnostic errors, which can include misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, failure to diagnose, or missed diagnosis;
- Childbirth errors, which can include failure to identify risk factors for complications in a pregnancy, failure to properly monitor a pregnant patient with a known medical condition or pregnancy complication, failure to prevent preterm labor, unnecessarily performing a cesarean delivery (or C-section), or failure to treat an infection resulting from a birth injury;
- Surgical errors, which are often known as “never events” according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and can include leaving a medical device inside a patient, operating on the wrong patient, or operating on the wrong body part; and
- Hospital-acquired infections.
Statute of Limitations for a Chicago, Illinois Doctor Error Lawsuit
Illinois law gives patients two years to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. When does that two-year time window begin? The clock on the medical malpractice statute of limitations will usually start to tick on the date of the medical error. For example, that two-year clock will start ticking on the date that the doctor prescribed the wrong medication to a patient, or the date that a surgeon operated on the wrong body part.
Contact Our Medical Malpractice Attorneys to File a Chicago Doctor Error Lawsuit
Do you need help with a doctor error claim? One of our Chicago medical malpractice attorneys can assist you. Do not hesitate to get in touch to learn more about how we can help. Contact Wais, Vogelstein, Forman, Koch & Norman, LLC today.
