Personal Injury Attorney Kenneth S. Nugent, P.C. is Providing Legal Services in Augusta, GA

Personal injury law firm Kenneth S. Nugent, P.C. Attorneys at Law is providing legal representation to those who have been at the receiving end of medical malpractice in Augusta, Georgia.

According to the Medical Malpractice Center, the United States registers around 15 thousand to 19 thousand suits against doctors every year. According to statistics from the book True Cost of Healthcare by David Belk, MD., Georgia ranked 16th in the country in annual per capita malpractice costs from all providers. In Georgia, there were almost 27 claims per 1 million residents and around 0.91 claims per 100 practicing physicians.

Medical malpractice is defined as neglect to provide appropriate treatment, omission of appropriate actions, or delivering substandard treatment that causes harm, injury, or death to a patient. It normally involves a medical error in any stage of the treatment such as diagnosis, medication dosage, health management, treatment, or aftercare.

There are a number of considerations that go into determining whether malpractice was at play during a lawsuit brought on by a plaintiff. Primarily, there should be a failure to adhere to accepted standards by health care professionals. Apart from the negligence on part of the health care provider, there should also be considerable harm or injury caused to the victim as a direct result of the health care provider’s failure to provide a proper standard of care. The damages should be of a considerable amount in the form of suffering, pain, disability, or loss of income due to any of the aforementioned conditions.

A few cases in which error or negligence could lead to a lawsuit are misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose, unnecessary or incorrect surgery, premature discharge, failure to order appropriate tests or to act on results, not following up within a reasonable amount of time, prescribing the wrong dosage or the wrong medication, leaving things inside the patient’s body after surgery, operating on the wrong part of the body, the patient reporting persistent pain after surgery, potentially fatal infections acquired in the hospital, and pressure ulcers or bedsores.

Though the data surrounding medical malpractice is not conclusive on the number of deaths that result from it, there are a few statistics that tend to be eye-opening about the extent of malpractice in US healthcare institutions. A team from the University of Illinois reported in Annals of Pharmacotherapy that blood thinners make up about 7 percent of all medication errors in hospitalized patients. In 2013, the BMJ (British Medical Journal) published findings indicating that the main cause of malpractice was a misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis. In 2016, Johns Hopkins scientists suggested that medical errors should rank as the third leading cause of death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer.

A spokesperson for the law firm talks about medical malpractice by saying, “Doctors and health care providers are expected to always act in our best interests and provide the highest standard of service. This is a fundamental belief that stems from the trust that patients place in the hands of medical institutions. When this trust is betrayed, it can lead to one questioning the capabilities and efficacies of the healthcare system as a whole. We know it can be intimidating to go against the sacred institutions that society holds in high regard. However, if you believe that you have been handed the short end of the stick resulting from a recent medical consultation, you are within your rights to seek compensation for the physiological and psychological damage caused. You need an experienced medical malpractice attorney, such as those at Kenneth S. Nugent, P.C. Attorneys at Law, to be on your side and help you through the process of getting fairly compensated for your physical and mental turmoil. Call us today and you will find out why Kenneth S. Nugent, P.C. is the best personal injury attorney Augusta has to offer.”